


Knowing Wendy

by ad_meliora



Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Loneliness, Self-Discovery, Special Friends, Spies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-10-10 00:43:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 37,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20519168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ad_meliora/pseuds/ad_meliora
Summary: Stella Gibson meets spymaster Wendy in a bar under a false name.





	1. Can I Sit Next to You?

**Author's Note:**

> First try, so be kind!

Wendy. Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. Wendy from the office. Wendy from the phone. Wendy from the bar. She felt like vacuous space, an increasingly hollow shell filled with nothing but the void created by a singularly focused life. Wendy in charge. Wendy in control. Wendy calling the shots, literally.   
In an upscale bar near the center of London, she resigned herself to being anyone other than Wendy tonight. Any number of aliases appeared in her mind, holdovers from missions of her own and her days as a spymaster. She resisted the comfort of these known identities, identities meticulously crafted for her, and began to drum up another identity.  
Across the bar, a lithe but petite woman surveyed the scene from a high stool in the corner. Her eyes flitted from patron to patron, picking them apart and the seams. It was her grotesque pleasure. She felt powerful and desiring. She drank, flirting with men who caught her eye before her attention was shared by a woman in white nursing a drink and looking a million miles away.   
She was fit, but not like Stella. She suspected this woman ran. She looked like a woman who could accelerate fast out of a starting block. Her ponytail was wrapped in her own hair. Professional. White collar. High end. Distant. Perfect. This woman and her thousand yard stare were the perfect resolution to Stella’s game of bed-share roulette. She flagged the bartender and told him to meet her at the other end at the woman in white.  
“You’re a Million Miles away from here aren’t you?” Stella asked, sitting down next to the target of her interest.   
“Oh. Hello. Did you need something?” Wendy asked.   
“I came to offer you another drink. I’ve been sat at the other end of the bar.”  
“Whom should I thank for this drink?” Wendy replies smoothly. She knew seduction well and could read the classic signs in the blonde woman’s cool flirtation.  
“Stella,” She replied.   
“Thank you, Stella. I’m Cassandra.”  
“Enchanted, Cassandra. What can I have sent over for you?”  
“You won’t join me for my drink?”  
“Only if you’d like the company.”  
“Would you like my company?”  
“Cassandra, are you propositioning me?”  
“Of course not, Stella.”  
“Perhaps I should proposition you, then. I could have a beautiful room for us.”  
“Try harder, Stella.”  
“What?”  
“You’ve got to put in some more effort than that. I’m not a prostitute.”  
“I see. I apologize for offending your sensibilities.” She took out a pen and jotted something on the napkin, then slid it across the walnut bar top to  
Wendy. It read, "IOU, one overpriced cocktail and a nightcap. Stella,” followed by her mobile number. Stella was already sauntering out of the bar. Wendy caught the napkin under her hand and brushed it into her purse. She’d read it later, trace the pen marks with her fingers before using her personal cell phone to dial the number and leave a short message stating that she’d be free on Friday and to meet her at a lounge nearby so she could collect her due. 

Friday was a struggle. Seldom bound by the work week due to the somewhat clandestine nature of her work, she felt unusually normal on her commute home. She yearned for the days when you could take the phone off the hook and rest a while.   
In truth, she had rarely known such freedoms. Her profession and expertise required her to be on-call or at work at every moment. However invasive her early work had been on her personal life, she missed slipping into someone else’s skin. Brushing her hair out, she reminded herself that that was precisely what Stella was for. What Cassandra was for. She reapplied her eye makeup, thinking quietly about who Cassandra might be. Winging her liner, she thought Cassandra was probably a bit artsy. Free. Smart. Start there, she thought. She idly recalled a professor she’d had in college — Marianne Heller, an American too good for anyone and too much for high society. Cassandra Heller had a nice ring to it. Wendy checked her watch and hurried the rest of her face.   
What a mood Stella was in. Horny and angry and irate. She’d swam as much as possible after work, dreading having to get out, despite the allure of her date. She was smart enough to know Cassandra wasn’t likely to give anything up tonight. Still, she could be a friend, and friends were hard to come by. Tapping her nails on the bar, she memorized the faces of the bar goers. Cassandra was late. 10 minutes.


	2. Little Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy’s past rears its head.

Stella gives it 15 minutes before she slinks over to a shy market analyst across the room. 25 minutes before she asks him if he’s interested in a nightcap. Cassandra never shows. Recovering from a particularly athletic bout with the analyst (a cyclist in his spare time, it turns out), Stella acknowledges how truly rare this night has been. She checks her mobile as she dresses. No call. No text. It’s a proper stand-up date. She mentally shrugs it off as she glances over the room once more before slipping into the hallway for her coat and shoes. Cassandra wasn’t much of a friend, it seems.

At noon the next day, she receives an apologetic voicemail from a woman who sounds like she’s standing next to a jet propeller. It takes a moment for Stella to recognize the voice, the low crisp tones, a moment to realize it’s Cassandra, who is apologizing and explaining that something urgent came up last night and that she’d had to leave the country briefly to resolve things, but that she’d be back soon and when she did, she wanted to see Stella. She sounded tired. Her voice strained. She could picture Cassandra, standing on a tarmac somewhere, plugging her ear with one hand and holding the phone with the other as her hair whipped impetuously around her.

Stella isn’t far off. Her caller is in rural France on the tarmac of a minuscule local airport, wearing a thick wool coat and plugging her ears as a small aircraft taxis to meet the car. She’s made the security detail sit in the car because she wants Stella unencumbered by her actual life. Something that’s hers alone. She’s tired. Feels gritty. She painted her nails in the car to disguise the dirt under them. Two agents are missing and their handler is in a shallow grave she didn’t authorize. Everything has been truly and royally fucked. Unwilling to be exposed for longer than necessary, she ducks back into the car as soon as the call is over and waits to be joined by their contact. She wishes she still smoked. She wishes Henshaw would have listened to her. She wishes she’d known better than to risk this. She wished —

“Allo,” a tiny French woman intrudes on her thoughts. Wendy nods.

“Celine.” She’s wearing a plush fur coat and large sunglasses. Folded into the back of their private car, she practically swims in the fur and fabric surrounding her slender body. Her slim fingers run over the leather seams and stitching on the seats.

“What is it this time, cherie?” Wendy immediately revises her wishlist from the minute prior. She wishes Celine didn’t call her that.

“I have names. I want to know if you have them on your books.”

“Ah, yes. You always come with questions. Have you ever asked if they are the right ones?” She plucks the large glasses from her face. Her fair skin is freckled and the lines of her age crisscross her face. Wendy knows how to read this map. She remembers a time before those lines existed, before her own lines existed, when she felt the future at her finger tips, ripe to be defined by her own actions. Youth is cruel. Age is crueler. Celine, twenty years Wendy’s elder, understood these cardinal truths well.

“As charming as your sphinx-like riddles are, I’d like to focus on the question at hand.”

“Wendy,” Celine prods in her thick, Parisian accent. “But you know, that is what I am. I am a sphinx. You love my riddles.” _She wishes she hadn’t been impulsive as a young woman. _

“Garland.” Wendy begins to list.

“Oui.”

“Mauss.”

“Oui.”

“Medvedev.”

“Non, non.”

“Henshaw.”

“Oui,” she says with a smile. “You see? I always help my cherie.”

“Thank you, Celine. One more name.”

“Greedy cherie. Hasn’t anyone ever told you a host should always receive a gift?”

“This is my car.”

“This is my country” Celine retorts.

“No gifts, Celine.”

“I fly to this terrible little place for you, cherie. I give you my knowledge. Do I deserve to be treated in such a way?”

“You know I treat you very well.” Celine pouts dramatically.

“Not like you used to.”

“Don’t.”

“In such an environment, I cannot remember the rest of my books.”

“Celine.”

“Next time, you come to Paris. None of this shit. Shitty little airports. I do not belong in this small places,” she sniffs with exaggeration. Leaning over to Wendy’s side of the car she adds in a stage whisper, “neither do you.” More quietly, for only Wendy’s ears, she adds, “You remember. We had lightning. Come home to me, cherie.”

“It wasn’t real, Celine.” “It was always real. All of this,” she gestures to the car, the security detail, “this is what is not real, my little bird. You do not belong in such cages.” _She wishes she could evaporate. Leave Celine and her nearly supernatural ability to know her. She wishes either she or Celine had ended the other when they had the chance, rather than enduring this dance. She wishes she’d never loved her. _

Wendy’s eyes trace the lines of Celine’s face. She already knows Celine is done talking today. She knows Celine knows she will not choose her. Not today. She knows Celine. She knows Celine can see the pangs of remorse written on her own face. She knows Celine is her greatest liability. And she knows Celine knows she will never take the action necessary to mitigate the risk Celine poses her.

“Until next time, cherie,” Celine says, sliding out of the car. Wendy watches her, apathetic to her own emotions.

“Au revoir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where did Celine come from? I don’t know. I image her as a less murderous Greta, a la the film, Greta.


	3. Do You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra takes shape for Stella.

Stella’s fingers brush rough caulking at the wall of the pool as she pauses, momentarily catching her breath. It’s been an hour and she’s feeling it in her shoulders. Still, she’s not entirely ready to leave the water just yet. A few laps of backstroke, she reasons. Different muscles, different burn, more time to sort out her head.

Cassandra’s voicemail is still on her mobile. Cassandra intrigued her. She was restrained, refined, assembled. She was also a liar. The nature of the lie was unclear, but Stella knew — knew as well as she knew how to swim — knew there was something about Cassandra. Some untruth. She also knew, deep in her subconscious, that her interest wasn’t entirely motivated by truth seeking. 

She turned and began her backstroke lap back across the pool. 

Cassandra was a mystery. 

Stella thought about her in the bar, about the voicemail in her mailbox.  Yes . The answer to whether Stella would see her again was yes. 

Wendy was relieved to be back in London. As minimally helpful as Celine had been, she was still down 3 agents, and the mission compromised. She’d selected replacements on the plane. Morgan would go as a field agent, paired with a more senior agent, Jerome. They would report solely to her. Jerome was her expert, and Morgan would be her leash on him. Morgan’s massive crush on Wendy had proved her saving grace in the agency. She was easy to handle, her devotion providing an unmatchable source of motivation to execute whatever Wendy laid out for her. That was exactly what she needed.

She checked her mobile phones. Her work mobile was unsurprisingly flooded. Her personal was decidedly not. 

She told the driver to take her home. The rest of the work — mostly calls and administration — could be dealt with from her home, where she might at least be able to enjoy a glass of wine in her roll-neck sweater, rather than confined to the sheath dress she’d been wearing for the last 18 hours.

Several hours later, having established the mission, chain of command, and authorized the appropriate clearances, she finally allowed herself the wine, having already slipped into a more comfortable knit ensemble.

Her mobile buzzed on the counter, a green message icon appearing on the illuminated screen. She finished pouring the wine, setting the bottle down with a click as the glass made contact with the granite countertop. She carefully applied a stopper to the bottle neck before slipping it back into the wine cooler and turning her attention to the now black screen. Illuminating the screen again, she read the message. 

“I’d like to see you, too,” The contact appeared as “S.” 

She typed back quickly, not wanting to lose her attention. “When?”

“Tonight?”

“It’s late,” she replied. 10:10. 

“Is that a no?” Stella responded. 

“No,” Wendy typed.

“Ok,” came Stella’s reply. Wendy could nearly feel Stella’s detachment and immediately realized her faux pas. 

“It’s not a no.” She tapped back, beginning an uncharacteristic, lengthier reply explaining herself. The phone began to vibrate in her hand as “S” appeared on the screen indicating an incoming call. Wendy held it for a moment before tapping the green accept button. 

“Hello,” she answered. 

“Hello,” Stella replied coolly. “What is the answer, if it’s not a no?”

“Tonight isn’t ideal.” Wendy was verging on apologetic.

“When would be?”

“Tomorrow.” Tomorrow, theoretically, she might have the night to herself, unbothered by Jerome’s somewhat annoying self-assurance and Morgan’s puppy-like adoration, which invariably extended simple conversations into much lengthier affairs that entailed reeling in the ever-eager Morgan with a mixture of curt and ambitiously apathetic clarifications that seemed to propel Morgan’s undying desire to please. 

“Tomorrow is fine.”

“I’m sorry.” Wendy said quietly. She was, after all. Her genuineness was her last saving grace in trying to salvage whatever this game was with Stella. 

“Where did you go.”

“I can’t say.”

“Official secrets?” Stella teased with rueful sarcasm.

“Ha. Art dealers aren’t generally entrusted with those sorts of things,” Wendy covered seamlessly. 

“Art, is it?” Wendy smiled to herself, her mirth tinged with pride in her professional skillset and the pleasure of having finally drawn in the enigmatic and aloof woman on the other end of the line.

“Yes. There was an emergency with a collection,” she said, matching Stella demeanor. “I can’t disclose where it’s being housed. Security and privacy. I’m sure you know all of this already,” she added with self-effacing dismissal. 

“I’m familiar with such concerns,” Stella replied.

“How is that?” Wendy asked, her curiosity piqued. 

“Detective Superintendent.”  _Ah-hah_ .

“I see. Then you know how valuable those things can be.“

“Yes, I do.” Stella paused. “Cassandra, what are you doing right now?”

“Now?” Wendy surveyed the kitchen in which she stood. 

“Yes.”

“I’m pouring my self a glass of wine.” Some truths were simply benign. 

“Hm.”

“You?” She asked. 

“I’m in the bath.” Wendy doesn’t reply, waiting to see where Stella will lead them. “Perhaps we could talk a while.” 

“Alright,” Wendy agrees, taking the glass and moving into her living room, settling into one of her favorite armchairs.

To Wendy’s surprise, a while meant a long while. It’s 12:30 before they say good night. Stella leads. She talks to about art, about music. At times the conversation enters into a kind of stream-of-consciousness. Wendy recognizes the format though. It’s measured. Clean topics, open-ended statements and questions. It’s rapport building.  _Stella is feeling her out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know where this is going yet. Do you want more?


	4. New Constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting at last.

Stella is femininity personified. She is beautiful, she is strong, she is impossibly sexy and confident. Wendy is intimately familiar with this kind of femininity, but has never quite managed to achieve it herself. She can put it on like a mask, but her feminine self is much more restrained. She’s historically blamed this on Britishness, but given that she and Stella share a motherland, that excuse no longer suffices. 

In truth, Wendy was never particularly confident in her femininity, obscuring it and choosing to wow with her intellect and skill. Her peers and subordinates had not anointed her “ice witch” — “ice bitch” when she was particularly exacting — for nothing. 

Now, preparing to see Stella for the first time since their impromptu meeting, Wendy felt uncertain about how exactly she wanted to play the game. She didn’t want to be Wendy, ice witch, tonight. Nor, she realized, did she want to deceive Stella. Not entirely. 

She liked Stella, actually. She wanted to see her again, not just as a foil to Wendy’s alter ego, but just because she was Stella. But, she also didn’t want to be herself. Not entirely. Wendy felt bored of herself. Being Cassandra offered her new options. Maybe she could be feminine like Stella. Or maybe she wanted something else. She did want something else. She simply wasn’t sure what.

Since their conversation in the bath, Stella had thought about Cassandra nearly everyday. They were not in-depth thoughts, but passing ones. A dress on a mannequin that reminded her of Cassandra at the bar, an art gallery window, they sparked meandering associations with the mysterious blonde. Stella’s mind could only afford these thoughts in passing. There was so much swirling around her, she couldn’t risk getting distracted. Cassandra was a distraction, but the kind that her psychiatrist would be suitably approving of. Cassandra was not a one-night stand (not yet), nor was she attached to any of the tumult and turmoil of her work. Cassandra was an extracurricular activity — a hobby, even, an outlet. That’s all she needed to be.

Stella opted for black pants and a black silk top under a light sweater for their date — outing was probably more appropriate. It made her feel relaxed. As much as she enjoyed her everyday wardrobe, it was nice to step out of it once in a while. The top was thin and flowed over her body like a wave, falling lower over her cleavage, supported by thin straps hidden under the sweater. It flattered. 

When she spotted Cassandra in the bar, she was slightly taken aback. She was wearing a backless halter dress belted at the waist with delicate black stilettos. She looked like a movie star. Smirking, Stella realized she looked like a typical red carpet date — blending into the sea of people and faces in her black ensemble. 

“You look ravishing,” Stella murmured in her ear, giving Cassandra a slight startle. 

“Stella,” she said, instinctively leaning in for a peck on her cheek. “You look beautiful as well.”

“Thank you,” Stella replied, signaling the bartender while continuing to eye Cassandra. She took stock of an old scar on her shoulder, but her interest was decidedly more appreciative than appraising. 

“I’m sorry for last time,” Cassandra said, fingers toying with the stem of her glass before catching Stella’s eye. “I truly couldn’t help it.”

“I wish you could tell me.” Stella said.  _I wish I could, too_ , Wendy thought in spite of herself. 

“It really wasn’t very exciting,” Wendy lied. “There were some potential concerns about a collection in storage and it was urgent that we were able to mitigate those concerns as soon as possible.”

“Material or economic?”

“Excuse me?”

“Were the concerns material or economic?”

“Both. I’m afraid I really can’t say more, Stella.”

“I understand,” Stella acquiesced. 

“You’re so inquisitive,” Wendy commented softly, “I like that very much.”

“It’s my job.”

“It’s your nature,” Wendy contested. 

“I don’t believe in nature.”

“No?”

“I used to be an anthropologist. I don’t believe in nature. Nature is just a way of biologically explaining what we do, who we are, but our biology has very little to do with that. You and I, we’re women, but we’re very different women, not because our biologies are so different, but because our sociality, our culturing, is different. I am inquisitive, yes, but I deny that this is my nature any more than your loyalty is yours. We made it a part of us.”

“I see. I admire your conviction.”

“My conviction? What about yours?”

“What conviction have I shown?”

“Art is a conviction.”

“A conviction or a profession?” Wendy probed. Stella laughed, 

“Are you invoking Max Weber?” Wendy chuckled, too. 

“I suppose I am.”

“I knew I liked you,” Stella murmured with a Cheshire grin. 

“I’m so glad you called,” Wendy said. “I needed it. Last night. I needed someone to talk to.”

“No need for thanks.” 

“No,” Wendy reached for Stella, capturing her hand under her own. “It’s something I don’t have often, a friend to talk to.” Stella looked at Cassandra intently. Wendy held her hand over Stella’s, although it felt as if it wasn’t her own. She felt detached from herself. The words sounded wrong, her voice not quite her own. She couldn’t locate whose they were, not her own, but not quite those of her alias either. They were no one’s.

“I know,” Stella said, her voice low and quiet, eyes fixed on Wendy. Her gaze was palpable, no longer observing, but dissecting.

“Stella,” Wendy said quietly, “I’d like to go upstairs with you.” Stella retracted her hand and severing her gaze, signaling the bartender again. She’d never actually ordered a drink. 

“The check,” she directed their wiry young man, proffering her credit card before returning her eyes to Cassandra, beautiful as ever in the low light of the bar, practically aglow. Stella sensed something shifting in her, as though metamorphosing before her very eyes beneath the chrysalis.  _ Secrets cannot rest .  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do we feel about this?


	5. Take Me Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude after the bar.

Stella dressed in the middle of the night, reassembling herself in the darkness as Wendy slept on her stomach, still naked from their encounter. She looked like a ghost, light skin and hair illuminated in the cool light of the city after dark. It suited her. 

Wendy’s nude slumber revealed her back, a map of freckles and scars. Stella recognized one on her shoulder as the mark of a bullet entry wound. Other marks varied in size. Her body was unlike any art dealer Stella had ever encountered. Formidable. The marks were like chinks in armor, marks of battle. Stella admired them as an archeologist admired a cache of artifacts, as a riddle yet to be solved. 

She slipped out quietly, leaving a note on the bedside table for Cassandra when she awoke. Her words failed her, addled by sleepiness and the vodka they’d retrieved from the mini bar. Unsure what to write, she turned back to the sleeping ghost in the bed and scrawled, “What a beautiful night.” 

When she reads it, Wendy is immediately compelled to tear it up. It was evidence, after all. Evidence of how positively insane she’d become, evidence of how replaceable she way, evidence of Stella’s superior womanhood. 

Part of her felt guilty — guilt by virtue of the lies of omission and untruths about her identity. 

Another part felt shame. She was ashamed that she had been so careless with her own security and so desperate for affection that she’d gone to bed with a woman she barely knew. She also felt the shame of being expendable. Sex was powerful. Wendy knew as much, she’d used it as a tactic by necessity several times in her life and career. She felt cheapened by Stella’s stealthy departure. She felt used and worthless. The cocktail of emotions made her want to scream.

She refused to allow Stella that, though. Instead, she marched into the bathroom and filled the larger tub with scalding water, submerging her body as soon as the water level was high enough, scrubbing her skin red, erasing the traces of Stella’s own body on hers. 

Draining the tub, she dressed quickly in her dress and coat, checked out, and drove herself back to her house, where she would change and erase all other remainders and reminders of Stella. 

Wendy was no one’s pawn. She was the queen. She ran the board. Stella wasn’t even on it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t forget about the steamy parts, don’t worry. 
> 
> Also, what do you think? Did you like it? Do you hate it? Do you even want the steamy parts?


	6. Movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second night stand.

Wendy’s mood is turbulent for the remainder of the day. Her agents are still missing — not dead, which is so far the best sign — and there’s always Celine. It’s all interspersed with meetings and memos, management. She glances at the chess set on her table as she listens to cyber intelligence update her on one of their ongoing surveillances.  _You’re the fucking queen. _ There’s a fire in her belly. Ferocity. Cassandra is dead. All her guilt and shame has transmuted into fury. 

Stella is not the subject of her anger, nor even a casualty of it. She’s nothing. Wendy needs neither. 

Sharp, angular Stella.  In morning light, all is revealed . Stella had used her. Wendy raged, not because she needed Stella, but for her own stupidity. She should have known better. She had been  vulnerable . She wouldn’t put herself in that position again. Stella could quite literally go fuck herself. Wendy had no desire to a horny copper’s playmate.

She visits the gym on her way home, peddling hard on the stationary bike until she feels like she might vomit. It dulls her anger only insofar as it inhibits her body from continuing what can only be described as a minor rampage. 

Cocooned in the limbo of the locker room, she peels off her tanks and leggings, folding them into the duffel she brought from the office. Naked in front of the mirror in the locker, she finally allows herself to examine her body in slivers of reflections. She examines herself like a coroner, surveying the different marks, the freckles, the white scars from weapons, wounds, the tiny mark on her abdomen from the only pregnancy she’s ever had — an ectopic one that had put her in the hospital in East Berlin in 1989 shortly before the wall came down. She’d been more careful after that. She has a bruise on the underside of her right breast. It’s artfully discreet. Respectful, even. Wendy suspects Stella knows a thing or two about the importance of discretion. The mirror doesn’t quite reach her face, cutting off just above her collar bones. She pivots her body, changing the angle of view just enough to see the rest of herself. It’s not a beautiful body per se, but it’s a good one. Formidable.

Stella excels at compartmentalization. It is both the triumph and downfall of her psyche. She armors herself in both work and sex with her clothes, her manicured self-assurance. Bored at her desk reviewing her case files, her mind settles on the mark on Cassandra’s shoulder. She knew bodies and she knew that mark. She checked her watch. A few more hours. She’d go home tonight. Drink. Bathe. Paint her toes perhaps.  _Cassandra had her nails done in a white nude. It stood out against her dress and the pinkness of her flushed cheeks._

Cassandra was a vision, both clothed and nude. She reminded Stella of a marble sculpture, crafted and refined. Her edifice was stony but smooth. Unlike Stella, who juxtaposed her angular body with soft silk, Cassandra wore structured clothes that obscured the feminine curves of her body and face. Like she was fighting herself. 

Stella chewed on the end of her pencil. It was as if she was phantom, almost but never really there. She was never really real. You can’t put your hands on a phantom. 

Finally in the comfort of her own home, Stella reclined into her small tub, her phone beside her on the tile, safely outside the splash zone but still in arms reach. She thought about the way Cassandra’s scars shone silver in the night light. She’d like to see them again. 

Impulsively, she retrieved her mobile, pressing it to her ear as it trilled. 

“Hello,” Cassandra answered coolly. 

“Cassandra, hello. I hope you slept well.”

“I did.”

“I wonder if you might want to see me again sometime. Perhaps tomorrow? We could take our time.”

“We took enough time.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“No, Stella. I don’t want to be used.”

“I didn’t use you.”

“You did.”

“You asked me upstairs. You pursued me. I gave you what you wanted. You overestimated what our encounter was. I didn’t use you any more than you used me.”

“I expected more than a trite note.”

“Trite? I don’t owe you anything, Cassandra. You were perfectly satiated when I left.”

“I thought you wanted more than just a fuck.”

“I don’t.” That was a lie, Stella knew as much.

“You talked to me for hours. I do not think I’m off the mark for assuming you had a deeper interest than fucking me. If you want that, have it. Plenty of women would love to have you. I don’t.”

“You did,” Stella challenged. 

“Excuse me?”

“You did love to have me.”

“This is pointless.” Wendy replies tersely.

“Why must you constantly deny yourself your own pleasure? You can be cross with me, but it doesn’t change last night. You cannot tell me you didn’t enjoy it. I was there. I heard it. I felt it, Cassandra.”

Wendy’s breath caught audibly.

“You kissed me, remember.”

“You told me to.”

“You don’t take orders you don’t want to execute.” Stella sank into the tub, raising her legs so that the balls of her feet rested on either side of the faucet head. 

“You,” Stella continued, “kissed me. Hard. And you slipped your tongue into my mouth, not the other way around. You were the one that took off my sweater and shirt... and bra. You had me half dressed before you even took off your shoes.”

“You touched me first.” Wendy asserted, voice dry.

“You asked me to. You begged. I gave you what you asked for.”

“I ...”

“You sucked on the corner of my jaw. I could feel your breath. I know, Cassandra. You cannot deny it. Not to me.”

“Should I not have?” The question is soft as quiet. 

“What did you want?”

“I wanted you. To touch me. I wanted you to take me there, to take me with you.”  _Oh. _

“How about now.”

“What?”

“Right now, Cassandra. Do you want it?”

“Yes,” Wendy breathed into the phone.  You’re the queen. 

“Where you are, Cassandra?”

“In my office. At home.”

“Are you comfortable?”

“No. I’ll move. Tell me where you are.” Wendy pins the phone between her shoulder and ear as she moves into the spare bedroom just off her office door. 

“I’m in the bath. I was thinking about you. You are beautiful.”

“Stella,” she whispered. Stella could hear fabric rustling and Wendy pulled off her jumper and settled onto her guest bed. “Now.”

“What do you want, Cassandra?” She asked gently.

“You. I want you.”

“What if I kissed your neck? The corner where it meets your chest. Ran my tongue along it.”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“What if I were in your lap? Kneeling over you. Kissing your neck. With my hand in your hair. You liked that. I remember.” Stella reached her hand between her slightly splayed legs. “I like it, too.” 

“Yes.”

“A hand on your side.“

“I’m not wearing my jumper,” Wendy husked.

“Perfect. You know my hands wander. You are divine.”

“Divine,” Wendy catches.

“Divine.” Stella affirms. “You are divine. Your body is a body of devotion. Your body is life itself. Your pelvis, nourishes and replenishes. Your chest, all that sustains you.” Wendy’s hands cannot help but trace Stella’s path. “Your breasts, are rich. Your neck, vitality. Your hair, strands of everything that has past.” Wendy’s hand tangles in her own hair as she allows the other to mimic Stella’s the night before when she had begged her to touch her. She already missed her. 

“Your arms, strength to carry. You carried me. Remember? To the bed. You carried me with my legs around your waist. I was wrapped around you. I couldn’t get close enough to you,” Stella continues. 

“I remember,” Wendy shivered and gave a particularly strong swipe between her legs as she arched into herself, reliving the sensation of having Stella wrapped around her, kissing her, tongues tangled, breath heavy. 

“Legs. I spent the whole night between your legs. My mouth. My hands. My legs.”

“Yes,” Wendy moaned, allowing her fingers to finally retrace Stella’s ministrations, softly pushing inside of herself. 

“Cassandra,” Stella moaned, spreading her legs wider and fingering herself as she gripped the phone to her ear desperately. 

“Stella, yes.” Wendy panted. It was too much too fast. 

“Do it, Cassandra. I’m there with you. I feel you,” she moaned as she palmed her clit. “You,” Stella hissed.

“Stella, I need ...”

“How does it feel?”

“I feel you. I wish I could feel it. Your mouth. The things you did. I...” her words rush and bleed into one another as she heaves closer to the finish.

“Cassandra,” Stella whined.

“Yes!” She squirms.

“That’s it,” Stella encourages herself as much as Wendy. Wendy speeds her rhythm, arching up into her hand,

“Fuck!” 

“Ha!” Stella yelps, her orgasm forcing the air from her lungs as she releases and slumps back against the porcelain. Her heart races as her body stills.

“Stella,” Wendy’s voice brings her back from the hazy afterglow.

“Was it good?”

“Yes.”

“Are you happy?” Stella asked, her voice even. 

“I am. Thank you, Stella.” Wendy straightens herself on the bed. “The water must be cold now. You should dry off. And rest.”

“I will,” Stella smiles. 

“Tomorrow, then?” Wendy proposes softly, conceding frustration to optimism. 

“Yes. Tomorrow.” Stella confirms. “Goodnight, Cassandra.”

“Goodnight,” Wendy says, removing the phone from her ear and tapping the red end call button. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that’s how that went. I wish I could say I had a plan, but I’m really just writing as it comes.   
But, all the chapter titles are also song titles, so make of that what you will.  
Does this suck? If it does, someone should probably tell me before I get too invested.


	7. Slippery People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of Wendy’s agents returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Stella this chapter, but she’ll be back very soon.

It’s barely six in the morning when she received an urgent call to her home. The tone awakens her with its ominous bellow and Wendy is suddenly thrust into a waking consciousness. Looking at the clock on her bedside, she realizes she’s overslept.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Director. Agent Denver. We received confirmation that one of our missing agents is in London. Picked up at King’s Cross and undergoing transport now.”

“Have the details sent to my office immediately. Hold questioning until I arrive. Elevated security precautions.”

“Director,” Denver says, “there is one more thing. The agent appears to be a messenger.”

“How is the message being transported?”

“It is on her.”

“On her body?”

“Yes.”

“Do not allow any photographs to be taken without my explicit sign-off. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Denver replies. Wendy disconnects them. She dresses quickly in slacks and a blouse. Her thoughts blaze through her mind as she goes through all of the motions of her day in double-time. Brushing her hair, brushing her teeth. Although normally met by a driver, she instead decides to drive and spare the wait. 

Only in the car does she take time to consciously process the news. One agent. The woman. Henshaw is still at large. A message. On her. Tattooed? She hopes not for the agent’s sake. The other options do not spark hope, though. Branding. Cutting. A tattoo is likely the best possibility for the young woman. 

The agent is put into a holding room, released under surveillance to Wendy’s office once she is settled. 

Elise Gordon is tall and gaunt. She looks like a collapsed inflatable in the corner of the office, seated in a stylishly uncomfortable guest chair. Her dark hair is overgrown slightly, giving her a bedraggled look. Wendy recognizes the quasi-uniform given to agents undergoing debrief. Black trousers and black knit top.

“Agent Gordon,” Wendy begins, beckoning the young woman toward her desk. She stands, the extent of her thinness displayed in the hollows of her bones and skin as she stands rigidly erect before her director. “I am told you resurfaced this morning in London. You did not make contact with anyone prior to your arrival. How did this occur?” Wendy folds her hands expectantly.

“Director. I arrived this morning at 0500 on an overnight train. Prior to that, I was held in detention for an indefinite period during which I had no opportunities to make contact. My cover was blown, but I believe further contact attempts would compromise the integrity of the mission at large.”

“By whom were you detained?”

“I do not know.”

“How were you abducted?”

“From the apartment. I was blindsided with Henshaw.”

“How?”

“We returned from dinner one evening. I was blindsided walking into our apartment. I was knocked unconscious. I do not know if Henshaw was also abducted, but we were not held together.”

“Your abductors?”

“No visual identification. I did not see them. I was hooded.”

“How did you eat?”

“I did not.”

“Continue.”

“They spoke French. Two individuals. Male sounding. One Swiss, the other French. I did not recognize a dialect. Another individual visited once. Female. French. Possibly Parisian, although I could not make a definitive identification.”

“The message?” Wendy asked. Elise stood, crossing her arms, reaching for the hem of her shirt, and gently pulling it over her head. Across her abdomen and lower back was a cursive script in burnt red ink. Wendy rounded the desk, leaning into Elise as she inspected the lettering. 

“Henna.” She identified. “Do you know what it says?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Has anyone seen this besides myself?”

“Lovelace and Denver.”

“Your supervisor and my liaison,” Wendy elaborated. 

“No photographs. As you asked.”

“And no translation attempts?”

“No.”

“Good.” Wendy said, turning sharply and returning to her desk to retrieve a small notebook. “Come here,” she said, motioning to the space beside her. Gordon obliged, taking long but wobbling strides. Wendy began to transcribe the note.

“Are there any other marks on you?”

“No. This is the only mark,” Gordon responded, hands held tightly at her sides as she stared out the window while Wendy wrote.

“You are aware,” Wendy said, attention still focused on her pen and the henna script, “that you will not be able to return home or to your assignments until this is no longer visible, are you not?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gordon replied obediently. “Where will I go?” She asked quietly, the regimented facade giving way to a much more uncertain reality the young woman was suddenly faced with.

“A safe house,” Wendy replied absently. “You will stay there until the dye is gone.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gordon quietly confirmed. Wendy double checked her handiwork. 

“No one is to see this. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Gordon,” Wendy stood to meet the agent’s eyes. “What do you believe has happened here?” Gordon searched Wendy’s face, reaching for some sort of assurance.

“I don’t know. I — I think that we were compromised. I was sent back. By someone. To give someone this message. But... I don’t know who. Or why. We didn’t find anything. We never found anything important. I don’t understand this. The intelligence didn’t say anything about this.” She looked at Wendy’s shoes. “I have no idea what happened. I wish I did.” 

Wendy nodded brusquely, gesturing for the woman to redress. “Very well, Agent. Return to holding to be debriefed and escorted to the safe house. If you recall anything, you are to speak to me directly. Call my direct line. Use your ID number. Do not disclose anything on record until you speak with me directly. Understood?” Gordon smooths the shirt over her stomach.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good day, Agent Gordon.” Wendy nodded. Agent Gordon nods, turns on her heel, and marches from the office with as much dignity as possible to be greeted by a security team outside.

The writing is Hungarian.  _Of course it is_. Although her Hungarian is more than rusty — barely existent — Wendy is able to piece together a general idea with the help of a thick dictionary stored in the cabinets under her windows. The note reads, “Darling, I believe this belongs to you. You should know better. Do you know what you seek? This is not it. I will see you in time. Sphinx.” Wendy smiles, the corners of her mouth upturned, but absent of joy.  _Celine_ .

Celine knew nearly everything worth knowing about her. She knew her name, she knew her post. She’d made a hobby of it. 

Somehow, somewhere, Celine and Wendy had fallen into this dance. As Celine so often claimed, they were the same. She’d whispered it often after a particularly difficult day, holding Wendy’s tender face in her hands, “All will be well. Trust me, I know. You and I, we are the same.” Wendy would nuzzle her face in the older woman’s neck and nod, holding her lover to her.

Wendy conceded their similarities now much more than she had then. Celine was a governor, a head controlling the body. She had amassed under her a strong and talented cohort of associates and underlings that executed her directives carefully and efficiently. Wendy had risen the ranks of the agency and now commanded her own teams of elite agents and intelligence projects. It was precisely this position that locked her into this never-ending waltz with Celine. She could scarcely imagine her work without the specter of Celine, simultaneously an informant and an adversary. If would be as if the moon fell out of the sky. 


	8. Moderation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella, Wendy, and gyros.

“Hello,” Wendy answered her phone, rubbing her forehead with the tip of her fingers.

“Hiya, boss,” Morgan chirped into her ear. “So, we got some good news and we got some bad news.”

“Morgan,“ Wendy warned.

“So, that uh, what was her name? Gordon. Yeah, so she was smuggled into the train station in a refrigerated delivery and presumably placed onboard a train. Isn’t that wild?”

“Wild is not the word.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Anyway, our guy Sebastian is no where. And, uh, I gotta say, I don’t like not telling Audrey. I feel like I should —“

“You will jeopardize countless lives if you tell her, including yours.” Wendy said sharply. “And possibly my own,” she added gravely.

“Got it, boss. My lips are sealed. Never breathe a word,“ Morgan rambled. Wendy kicked off her heels under the table, recognizing the working day was now drifting into evening. “Thank you, Morgan.”

“Yes! Of course. I’ll call you with more updates,” she continued excitedly.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“No, no, I insist!” Morgan babbled, hanging up the phone before Wendy could argue further. Wendy patted herself on the back for the line about the endangerment of her own life. A smaller part wondered if that might even be true. Nestled in a corner of her heart the hope remained that Celine couldn’t hurt her. _“You, my Cherie, are the only one I will truly love. You will never come to harm,” Celine had said, holding Wendy’s face between her palms, brown eyes staring intently at Wendy’s face, exploring every feature intently. _Wendy believed her then, before Celine had disappeared. This small piece of her heart continued to believe in Celine.

Returning to the present, Wendy sank further into her chair. She had no idea what to do about Celine, about Gordon. Her expertise and experience propelled her investigation forward, but her own mind was still reeling, upended by the implication that Celine had taken her agents, and what it might be leading her toward. Wendy knew Celine was dangerous. She no longer knew to whom.

On the desk, her personal mobile pulsed, crawling across the polished top. The message read, “Jazz?” _Stella... _

She calls.

“Gibson.”

“Stella,” Wendy says. “Where are you?”

“At work. Is that a no to jazz?”

“I’m exhausted,” Wendy admits. “Would you like to go get a gyro instead?”

“A gyro. I could arrange that. An hour?”

“Any longer than that and I might gnaw off my own arm,” Wendy muttered. Stella snorted.

“An hour. I’ll send you the address. I know a place near our hotel.” _Our hotel_, Wendy notes.

“Thank you, Stella. Really.”

“No need. I’ll see you there.” The phone disconnects and Wendy sighs. Relieved.

Stella looks tired. It’s the first thing that Wendy notices. She’s sitting in her car parked a block above the gyro shop, her fair face illuminated by the blue glow of her cell phone. She taps the glass window with her knuckles and smiles as Stella glances up at her.

“It’s good to see you,” Stella says, stepping onto the pavement.

“I’m glad you messaged.”

“I’m glad you called.”

“Enough, I’m starving.” Stella’s lips quirk into a smile.

“Ok,” she replies.

The gyro shop is narrow, long, and dim. Wendy suspects this is one of Stella’s private haunts. Maybe near home or route to work. She wonders briefly where Stella lives. She doesn’t ask, but instead concentrates on her order.

Sitting down in a tiny booth, Wendy’s bones begin to feel the exhaustion of the day. She’s been sitting for most of it, but the tension has thrummed through her muscles all day. She rests against the bolster of the seat.

“You look tired,” Stella observes.

“So do you.”

“What’s happened?” Wendy wishes she could say.

“Work. The problem with the collection… is a bigger problem than we anticipated. Something happened and we’ve lost some pieces and some people and the headway is nonexistent. I feel like I’m beating myself against a wall.”

“Have you spoken to Interpol?”

“The requisite calls. It’s not something Interpol has the resources or knowledge to handle adequately. It’s more or less up to me. I’m accountable, after all. I was overseeing this and it was on my watch,” Wendy confesses, the tension resuming in her abdomen.

“Do you need help?”

“Help?”

“The police. Do you need local help. I don’t work on these kinds of cases, but I can —“

“No, Stella. Thank you.” Wendy cuts her off. Stella’s body remains relaxed, but there’s a minute change in her eyes that makes Wendy realize she’s been a bit brusque. _You’re not her boss. _Wendy reaches for Stella’s arm across the table, grasping it gently,

“Really,” she says more softly, “thank you.” She sighs. “It’s very stressful. I’m sorry.”

Stella nods. “I know it must be.”

A pudgy man with thinning hair delivers their gyros in plastic baskets. They eat in relative silence, listening to the dull din of the radio in the kitchen and the cashiers speaking in Turkish.

“Do you want to talk about why you look tired?” Wendy asks.

“Not particularly,” Stella replies. _Alright_. “Staying up with you hasn’t helped.” The tone is harsh, but when Wendy looks up from her sandwich, she catches a mischievous smirk from Stella. She can’t help but laugh.

They finish eating quietly with the exchange of a few more affectionate barbs. Wendy smiles and means it.

Walking out onto the street, they fall into a moment of silence. Wendy is absorbed momentarily in the night, thinking about how many times she’s roamed around in places like this, about how alien it suddenly feels.

“I work on cases involving sexual or domestic violence against women,” Stella states abruptly, watching her feet tap against the sidewalk with each step.

“That must be difficult.” Her response is obligatory. Wendy knows what it is like. Difficult isn’t the right word.

“It can be,” Stella acknowledges, avoiding the details for Cassandra’s sake. _She’s an art dealer, you can’t push all your shit on her._

“Are you proud of what you do?” Wendy asks. It’s a question she’s often posed to herself.

“Yes,” Stella replies after some deliberation. “I am.”

“I am, too,” Wendy says. She links her arm with Stella’s. Stella leans in in spite of herself.

“I don’t want to go to a hotel tonight.”

“I don’t want to either.”

“Come home with me.”

“I’m not sure I’m up for sex tonight,” Wendy confides.

“Then we won’t. I’m not a man.”

“No,” Wendy smiles. “You’re not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do we think?


	9. As It Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night and morning after.

They made out all night, all over Stella’s apartment, lazy and unrushed, tongues tangled together. The tensions in their bodies eased until Wendy found herself loose and comfortable in a silk camisole and skirt, sitting sideways on Stella’s lap as she stroked her calf. Wendy’s hands played in Stella’s hair as she kissed her, each caress spilling into the next. 

“I was angry at you, that night when you left,” Wendy whispered, her breath tickling Stella’s cheek. 

“I know,” Stella murmured. 

“I was angry because you left and I thought — I thought that I cared more than you did. I allowed myself to do something I never do with you. And I was angry when you left.”

“I know, Cassandra,” Stella breathed, allowing Wendy to hold her face gently in her hands. 

“But,” Wendy continued, “I know I shouldn’t have been. I wanted more than you wanted to give me. I shouldn’t have been angry at you.” 

“Thank you,” Stella whispered, her voice a little softer, a little lower.  _She gets it. _

“I’m glad you didn’t let me blame you for how I felt.” Wendy averted her gaze from Stella’s, eyes flicking down to the small, nearly imperceptible details and features of the woman beneath her. “I’m glad you talk me into things, Stella. Because you just seem to know what to do, and when to not let me do things I shouldn’t. I’m gladI’m here, Stella.”

“I’m glad you are too,” Stella said between light kisses at the corner of Wendy’s jaw. 

“I admire you, too.” Wendy tilts her head to kiss Stella squarely on the mouth. She hopes that Stella can feel it, all the tenderness, affection, and respect she feels in that moment. If Stella can feel it maybe then Wendy will stand a chance. 

Stella likes the feeling of Cassandra sitting chastely in her lap. It’s a welcome change of pace from the often athletic and intense sexual encounters she’s used to. There’s a thrill she loves in those passionate, primal affairs, but there is also a special, unquantifiable pleasure of slow intimacy. There’s no definitive end point their searching for, they’re just enjoying one another’s company. Cassandra is good company. Stella had decided that long before her companion’s apology. Her confession only cemented Stella’s appreciation for her. 

When they awaken in the darkness of the early winter morning, Wendy cannot be angry. Stella is nestled into her side, barely clothed, stirring reluctantly to snooze the alarm and whisper, 

“When do you need to go?” 

Wendy blinks to focus her eyes, but she already knows. 

“The sooner the better,” she admits. 

“Bathroom is the door next to the chest. You can borrow something of mine. We’re the same size,” Stella rasps out. Her morning voice is breathy and low and she speaks with her eyes closed. 

“Ok,” Wendy answers, kissing Stella’s cheek. She has too much to think about to wonder if she should go home. This will do. 

By the time Wendy is done with her shower and personal care,  Stella is awake and dressed. She’s laid out three dresses on the bed for Cassandra. One immediately stands out, and Wendy, unthinking, slips into it. It lays well, although she senses by the fit that she and Stella have slightly different rib and bust measurements. The differences is unnoticeable to the layperson, though. Padding down to the kitchen in stocking feet, she finds Stella packing a work bag intently. 

“Do you need a ride to work?” Stella asks, all business once more.

“No, thank you.” Seeing Wendy’s eyes scanning the room, Stella points to a chair next to her, 

“Your bag is there. Coat on the hook in the foyer and shoes.”

“Thank you, Stella.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Can I call you tonight?” Wendy asks. 

“For what?”  _She’s is genuinely asking. _

“I’m not sure. Shall we find out?”

Stella nods.  _Yes. Yes, you can call. Yes, we can find out. Yes. Yes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ulysses is my favorite book and I will not apologize for it!  
This was a little short, but I wanted to get it out so we can see what comes next.  
Feedback, commentary, and thoughts highly encouraged! If it’s terrible, I’d rather know now!


	10. Bird Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella goes home with someone else.

Wendy feels stronger in Stella’s clothes. She’s always been ferocious, strong, dangerous in her own way, but Stella’s clothes imbue a different power. She likes the way it fits on her. 

When she settles into her seat, coffee in hand, she is steeled. Prepared. Ready. 

There’s an eyes-only file on her desk.  _Gordon_.  She skims it. There’s a report from the Hungarian translator, a note from the doctor who saw Gordon, the psychological evaluations. She skims the information. The profiler’s notes are most succinct and unsurprising. It’s personal. Wendy knows that. 

The day passes in a blur. It feels like it’s barely been an hour before the sun is dipping below the sky. She checks her watch. _It’s probably too late to call._

Wendy returns to her own home a few hours later. It feels cavernous. She keeps everything in her home tidy, shiny, spotless. She likes the precision. It’s comforting. When everything else is out of control, her home is a kind of sanctuary — the last bastion of order. 

It gives her space to think. The absence of objects and clutter helps her clear her mind. She climbs the stairs to her bedroom in an almost trance like state, comforted by the void of thoughtlessness. She doesn’t have to think about Celine or Gordon, or Sebastian. And she doesn’t have to think about Stella. But she wants to. 

Undressing herself, she climbs into bed wearing a massive t-shirt she bought in Banff on one of the only vacations she’s ever had. It has a maple leaf on it. It’s soft and cozy, worn in with age to a perfectly comfortable texture.She curls into it, relishing the sensorial comfort of being in her own home, in her own shirt, in her own bed.  Sometimes its better to just be alone. Still, she thinks about Stella, ceasing only through conscious effort.  _Nothing good happens when you’re in love_ , she reminds herself. Nothing good ever happens. 

Stella finishes on top, straddling her lover as her body tenses and relaxes from the strain of the orgasm. He pants beneath her, 

“Wow.” With that, she decides, it’s time to go. 

He’s lying on his back, arms shifting to provide a cushion under his head as he relaxes. She dismounts as if climbing out of a saddle, swinging one leg behind her and then sliding off the bed onto her feet. He doens’t notice.

“I can go again in a little bit,” he says sleepily. He’ll be out before he knows it. She’s already mostly dressed and searching for her left shoe, replying, 

“That won’t be necessarily.”

“I’ll call you,” he offers, voice drowsy. He doesn’t have her number.

“Doubtful,” she muttered, locating the missing shoe halfway under the bed. 

“No, no, I will,” he assures her. 

“Ok,” she says with a verbal shrug. “Sleep well.” She buttons her blouse and rights it with a tug before surveying the room, making sure nothing has been left behind in the sad little bedroom.  All clear . 

Safely tucked in her car, she texts Wendy,

“I slept with someone. It was bad.”

“Couldn’t finish?” Wendy replies almost instantly.

“We did, but it wasn’t good.”

“One of those,” Wendy replies knowingly.

“I’ll call you when I get home,” Stella taps out before sashing the car in the cup holder and pulling onto the street. 

She divests herself of her work clothing almost immediately once home, tossing the clothes in her wicker hamper and pulling a silky nightgown and robe on in their stead. Comfortable, she checks her phone. No response from Cassandra. She dials without thinking, her fingers already familiar with the combination. 

“Stella,” her voice greets. 

“Cassandra,” Stella smiles. Wendy can hear it through the phone. 

“That bad?”

“Not bad, no,” Stella assesses. “He just wasn’t what I wanted.”

“Oh?”

“I’m in a sapphic mood. Maleness is altogether too much and not enough.”

“I know,” Wendy sighs. “He at least got you off, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t really him, you know. The sensation of it was helpful, but I did most of the work myself.” Wendy hums in acknowledgment and solidarity. She knows precisely that feeling, although its seldom been a product of one-night-stands and more often a result of a dying relationship she’s too tired to end. 

“I was thinking about you, Cassandra.” 

“Hm?” Wendy hums again absently. She’s listening, but not too closely. 

“Yes. That’s what did it. It wasn’t him at all. It was you.”

“I almost called you today,” Wendy confesses, rolling onto her back in bed and stretching her legs under the covers.

“I would have probably missed you.”

“Would you like to meet tomorrow?”

“I’d like that.” 

“Good. So would I. I’ll get us a hotel room.”

“Our hotel, please? I like the parking.”

“Ok, our hotel. I’ll text you the room number tomorrow.” Wendy briefly considers initiating phone sex, but all too soon realizes she can’t take another night without a decent sleep. “Goodnight, Stella.”

“Good night, Cassandra,” Stella parrots, waiting for the inevitable snap sound that disconnects the call. It is expedient and she is once again alone in her bed. The silence speaks volumes. Stella is being hidden, from whom or what she cannot say, but there is no mistaking the casual secrecy that has emerged as Cassandra’s comfortable modus operandi. It’s somewhat familiar, whether conscious or not. Stella has never been particularly bothered by it, and isn’t sure she is even bothered now. It’s the possibility that she might be bothered at all that she finds most uneasy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who will catch the feels first? Only time will tell?  
Comments are very appreciated!


	11. What You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy lets Stella in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized Sebastian’s name is Hendshaw, not Henshaw. He’s not in this chapter, but now you know.

She arrives in the restaurant of their hotel at 7:00pm sharp, having mounted a Herculean effort to leave her office at a reasonable hour, including enduring an unnecessarily long phone call with Morgan in the car, which had quickly seeped from professional update to Morgan gushing over how she was a perfect encapsulation of Bond and M. Free from the tyranny of FaceTime, Wendy rolled her eyes freely.

Now, in the restaurant, seated at a small booth along a freestanding wall, she wondered if perhaps she’d gotten her wires crossed somehow. Of all the people in the restaurant, not one resembled Stella. She sighed, put her finger tips to her brow and cheek bones, and allowed her mind to drift back to work, Celine, and her continuously missing agent. None of it made any sense. The motivations didn’t track. 

“I sense that the situation with your collection has not improved,” Stella’s voice cut in. Wendy slowly removed her hands and raised her head to meet Stella’s eyes with a meaningful and steadfast gaze that answered an emphatic “no.” 

“I’m sure we can find some way to take it off your mind,” Stella said, seating herself across from Wendy, reaching for her hand and rubbing the top of her hand with her thumb. “Hi,” she said softly. 

“Hi,” Wendy echoed. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“I got stuck in traffic on the way here. Motor accident, I think. Did you already order?” Wendy tells her she hasn’t and the situation is quickly remedied. Wendy likes Stella’s propensity to take charge. It takes the burden off her shoulders. 

They eat and drink and chat. Wendy hasn’t told her yet about the room keys in her pocket. She wants to see how the night plays out. 

As the meal winds down, Wendy feels her anxieties assuaged, and begins to think about how to tactfully invite Stella up.  _What’s the point in tact? She tried to take you home the first time she met you._ Her thoughts are interrupted by a soft chime and vibration from her dress pocket. Her mobile. Work. She can tell the vibration pattern. 

“I’m sorry,” Wendy says, pulling the phone from her pocket to her ear. “I need to take this.” She excuses herself to the end of the room, between the bar and a small doorway to the elevator bank. Stella can hear her faintly.

“Celine,” she hears, hushed and rushed. “I’m in London. No, I can’t. Yes, I do.” She can see mounting exasperation on her companion’s face as she tries to keep her voice calm. Without a moment of thought or hesitation, Wendy switches from English to French. She’s too far away and Stella’s French is too rusty to discern precisely where the conversation goes from there. From the other end of the line, Celine praises Wendy’s switch, murmuring that she’d always liked Wendy’s speech best in French. Wendy presses her for further details on what exactly prompted this call. Celine is irritatingly vague. When Wendy huffs, she admonishes her, preaching patience as a virtue and telling her that all will be resolved in due time and to let things take their course. Wendy is about to reply when the line is cut. She presses the end call button anyway. 

When Wendy returns to the table, she’s met by a cooly inquisitive look by Stella.

“Something come up?” She asks. 

“In a manner of speaking.” 

“Wife?” Stella probes.

“No, no. It’s nothing like that.” She doesn’t say what it  _is_ like. Stella chooses to bypass the conversation and brewing conflict in favor of finishing the meal in peace. 

She comes up without hesitation. She’s been waiting all day to see Cassandra, and she refuses to be robbed of the satisfaction of being with her on account of a nosy French woman named Celine. 

She presses Cassandra to the door of the room. Her mouth is an anchor, she revels in the feeling their lips, the warm wetness of their tongues sliding together. Her fingers slowly inch the fabric of Wendy’s dress up toward her hips. When they break to breathe, she can hear Cassandra’s gasps and pants before her own moan joins in in response her lover’s fingers sliding up her thigh and between her legs, rubbing just enough to stimulate but not enough to satisfy. Stella whines in spite of herself. 

Sensing a moment of weakness, Wendy pushes them both toward the bed. Stella collapses under her, tugging her down on top of her and fumbling for the back zip in Wendy’s dress. It’s a scramble to rid themselves of their clothes and shoes. Stella only manages to get Wendy down her her bra before Wendy is once again reaching between her thighs, her fingers gliding between her vagina and clit in slow but methodical swipes that seem as much for her enjoyment as Stella’s. 

“You are magnificent,” Wendy admires. Stella lifts her head, expecting to see the older woman’s eyes fixed on her fingers, but meeting them instead. 

“I want you. Desperately.”

Wendy obliges in the only way she knows how, by settling herself on her stomach between Stella’s thighs and using her mouth to pay homage to the woman before her. It’s nearly overstimulating and Stella cries out all too quickly. She’s surprised when Cassandra continues, bringing her to the precipice once more as her fingers tangle and muss her hair and fingernails scrape her scalp. She screams the second time and Wendy relents, only after a tug on her hair. 

Rejoining Stella face-to-face, she is delighted by the sheen of sweat on her face and surprised by the dampness in Stella’s eyes. She doesn’t give her much time to look, instead pressing Wendy into the mattress and she kisses her, shifting her weight to pin Wendy’s hips beneath hers, finally ridding her of her errant bra. She straddles Wendy, reaching behind her to finger her while watching her face. She holds Stella’s hips, her hands tensing when Stella finally,  _finally, _reaches inside her, crooking her fingers just so. It’s all she can do not to beg, but instead to whimper and whine as Stella plays with her, grabbing her own breasts with one hand and holding Stella steady as she arches into her. She feels like a kite on a fraying string, about to break free at any moment. Stella coos to her, dirty words in a quiet, heady voice that make Wendy’s head spin. It’s the combination of their hands and her voice that finally pushes her over the edge, quivering, swearing, and sweaty. 

Stella lifts herself delicately off Wendy, missing the sensation of her already. Moving herself to lie next to her, head nearly on her shoulder, Stella feels both satisfaction and loss seeping into her bones. Their breathes slow together as the regain their composure lying side by side. 

“You can lie to me.” She says, “But I know.”

“What?” Wendy sits up slightly, propping herself on her elbows.

“You’re lying. I know it. I’m willing to be your in-between lover or your one-night-stand. I don’t care about monogamy.” She pauses. “I won’t be lied to.” 

“Stella,” Wendy drops back onto the bed. “I wish it were simple.” Stella is silent. “I can’t tell you. And... I don’t want to. I like what we have. If I tell you the truth, even part of it, things will change so much.”

“Tell me the truth, Cassandra.”

Wendy sighs, hands resting on her stomach. “Wendy.” Stella is so silent it’s as if she’s vanished. “My name is Wendy.”

“Even that?” Stella’s voice breaks. 

“Even that.” Wendy reaches blindly toward the woman beside her, hand landing on her elbow, crawling on fingertips to her hand and interlacing their fingers.

“It wasn’t because of you,” she whispered. “I just didn’t want to be me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess that’s how I write the steamy parts.  
Now, the real question is whether Stella will cut and run. Can she forgive Wendy? Does she want to? And can Wendy be with Stella without the facade of Cassandra mediating their relationship?


	12. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella's choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day, I'm going to make a playlist of songs from the chapter titles.

Wendy expected a rebuke, an expression of disgust. She expected Stella to be angry with her. But she wasn’t. There was no screaming, no seething. Stella extricated herself from Wendy’s grasp, grabbing her shirt off the floor and holding it to her chest as she stared out the window, utterly wordless.

Wendy slid off the bed, naked and ashamed. She watched Stella, still as a statue, illuminated by the automatic lights in the room.

“I’m sorry,” Wendy said, standing at Stella’s shoulder. “I never meant to hurt you.” Stella’s eyes remained fixed on an unseen point outside.

“What else?” She asked, voice dull and resigned.

“Stella,” Wendy sighed. “It’s not important.”

“No,” Stella argued more sharply. “Tell me what else.” Wendy’s head dropped to her chest, the weight of deception suddenly heavy on her shoulders.

“I’m not an art dealer. There is no collection.”

Stella remained quiet for a moment, mind turning over every word, every conversation. She turned to face Wendy slowly, eyes raising to meet hers.

“You’re in intelligence, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Wendy said. The word hung in the hair. Stella let the shirt fall, allowing herself to be bared, naked and vulnerable. “I’m sorry, Stella,” she said, her voice soft but mournful. _She’s gone. _

Stella did not answer. She had no answer to give. She was suddenly glad that she’d never called out her lover’s name.

“The room is paid for. You can stay. I’ll go.” Wendy broke the silence, turning to begin collecting her things off the floor. Their clothes were a mess, jumbled together in errant collections on the carpet. Stella watched her.

“Don’t go, Wendy.” Wendy’s body stilled at Stella’s words. “I don’t want you to go.”

Wendy held her dress in her arms, mirroring Stella’s early modesty.

“I forgive you.”

Wendy collided with her as though magnetically pulled, her mouth searing the skin of Stella’s face and neck. Her hands sought out every inch of Stella, ceasing only when Stella caught them in her own as Wendy began to cry into Stella’s sternum.

“I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I’m so sorry.”

Stella held her, wrapping her arms around Wendy’s shaking body as the cried and rasped, until Wendy’s tears exhausted themselves and her breathing slowed.

Stella guided them back to bed, drawing Wendy onto the bed with her. Her breathing was wet and heavy, slowing ever so slightly as the minutes passed until Stella could feel the rhythms of sleep.

She laid there, unable to move, for what felt like hours. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to let go. She couldn’t.

Stella woke her before she left. Wendy was groggy, eyes puffy.

“I’m going to work,” Stella said as Wendy’s eyes slow focused on her in the dull darkness of the room. “I’m going to call you,” she added. “I’m going to call you tonight. Okay? Tonight.” Wendy nodded, sleepily. “When am I going to call you?” Stella reiterated, pulling her coat on by the bedside.

“Tonight.” Wendy replied.

Stella nodded, “Right.” She leaned down, kissing Wendy squarely on the mouth in a kiss that was neither chaste nor sloppy, but direct and intentional. “Tonight.”

Wendy rose and dressed a short time later, and drove herself home to change and shower.

She felt liquified. She felt hollow. She felt renewed, stronger. Stella alway made her feel stronger, even in face of uncertainty.

She was deeply uncertain. Stella’s failure to reject her startled her as much as it absolved her. It wounded her, too, to know that she had thrown the first emotional punch, and that rather than hitting back, Stella had chosen to hold her instead. It scared her. _Nothing good happens when you’re in love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but necessary. Inspiration struck in the shower. I need to sleep on the rest. Sometimes I feel like these characters right themselves if I give them the room to speak. Does that even make sense? (Does any of this make sense?)


	13. Once was One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy confronts her past, if only to herself.

Stella felt different as she dressed herself, pulling on her favorite lingerie, her favorite skirt. Her favorite shirt was a t-shirt discarded in the hamper. In its stead she donned a silky cream blouse. Everything felt the same, but different, as if she’d gotten off at the wrong station stop on her ride home from work. 

She desperately needed a swim. Her mind felt like it was swimming, uncertain which direction to turn toward shore. 

It was difficult to think of her as Wendy, although she supposed it wasn’t the name that was difficult as much as it was the revision it required to everything she thought she knew about the woman attached to it. Still, standing in the hotel room with a thousand yard stare,it had never crossed her mind to leave. 

She hadn’t dreamt about it. She never dreamt when she was with  Wendy.  Not that she could recall. 

Wendy spent the morning pouring over Celine’s file, every movement, every record, any clue to lead her back to what her sphinx was thinking. She never could tell.

Celine vexed her. Neither villain nor hero, Celine relied and answered only to herself. Wendy knew. She missed her. Even now. _Everyone remembers their first love. _

Sitting in her leather high back chair, pumps, and blonde hair, Wendy felt a million miles away from Celine, away from them. They had lived in an apartment over a bakery. The noise of the bakers woke her up every morning at 4am. Celine slept soundly. She had a bicycle, even though Celine insisted it wasn’t posh enough or safe enough. She didn’t care. She liked it. She rode it around the city, collecting and delivering money for Celine. They were still small-time back then. Celine was never the target, just a conduit. She loved Celine. And then it all went to hell. 

Wendy had been “extracted” after one of their targets was killed by a third party. It was staged like a kidnapping, but ended up much more real than anticipated. The truth was that when the van came, she had fought to stay. She wanted to stay with Celine. It didn’t matter though. She was extracted. She cried on the plane. The older agents assumed it was a response to her first on-the-job trauma. It wasn’t that. It was heartbreak.

By the time the plane landed, the choice had been made. Wendy went along with the story. She left Celine. But Celine never left her. 

Wendy closed the folder and tucked it into her desk drawer. Celine would call her. She always did. 

It’s not Celine who calls. Stella rings her at half past nine from the bath. She can here the water sloshing as Stella sinks into the bath, body nearly submerged with only the neck and face above water next to her mobile. The microphone funnels the ambient noise into Wendy’s ears and for a moment she almost feels like she’s there. 

“Hi,” she breathes. 

“Hello, Wendy,” Stella says smoothly, mouth adjusting to the name. “You knew I’d call.”

“I knew,” she parroted. She was standing in her kitchen, what to do. 

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“That’s not what I meant. Where  _are_ you?”

“Lost,” Wendy admits, finally moving from her spot on the kitchen floor, allowing her feet to carry her to her bedroom. “Where are you?”

“I’m with you. I only just met you last night. I’m curious.”

“I’m not very interesting,” Wendy replies seating herself on the edge of the bed, kicking her feet against the carpet.

“Why do you like me, Stella?”

“I simply do,” Stella replied resolutely. 

“I’m going to dye my hair soon. I wanted you to know that... I’m going to look different.” Wendy ran her hand through her hair subconsciously. It wound’t feel any different dyed brown, but it would be. She’d be different. 

“Are you leaving?” Stella asks, the cool tone betraying the vulnerability she felt. 

“No. It’s not an assignment. It’s a negotiation and —“

“You’re involved,” Stella finished. 

“Yes.”

“Is it Celine?” Wendy stilled, as though paused in time. 

“I heard you on the phone. You said her name.” 

“Yes, it’s Celine,” Wendy sighed.

“Will you still be Wendy? With me?” 

“Yes. I will.” It’s a promise Wendy doesn’t mean to make, but can hardly deny. She can’t deny Stella, and it scares her how much like Celine she is. She’s scared of herself. Of what she would do for them. Of being tearing herself apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m thinking of putting this on hiatus. I’m not sure it’s really getting the traction I was hoping for and I don’t know if it’s worth it to continue developing. Input would be appreciated. I have a vague story arc in mind at this point and I’m willing to keep working through it if people are getting some enjoyment from it, but otherwise I think I might call this quits.


	14. One More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy is the queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned this at the end of the last chapter, but I am likely putting this story on hiatus. I’m feeling stuck in terms of progression and from my perspective, it’s not very good anyway, and since no one has voiced a desire for it to continue, I think I’m just going to let this one die on the vine. Just laying it out there. Input is welcome if you have any either way.

“Come to wine tasting with me.” The message comes in at 8 in the morning. Wendy catches the message just as the phone screen blinks to black again as she fastens her smart watch onto her wrist and slides her work phone into her armband. Her blush pink quarter zip pullover and high ponytail give her a posh vibe, like one of the numerous well-to-do wives that populate the neighborhood, all of them — Wendy included — out for their obligatory morning run. 

Wendy likes to run the way Stella likes to swim. The rhythm of it is both meditative and hypnotic. She likes the way it pushes her. One more mile, one more step. She never ran competitively, but she trains like she does. It’s all about pace, about stride. It brings her some comfort to know in the indefinite stream of chaos, she can rely on her body.

She runs 16 kilometers in all, winding around the neighborhood and park paths before returning to her doorstep. There’s a parcel on the step, wrapped in brown paper and twine with the unmistakable scratch of Celine’s handwriting across the address label and the side of the box. Turning it over in her hands, she notes the crumpled corners and stains of postal ink. The gall of it. 

Ducking inside with it, Wendy bounds up the steps to her office, pulling her personal mobile off its charging dock and snapping photographs of each side under the illumination of her desk lamp, inverted toward the ceiling to defuse the light. 

It’s a parcel of letters, all written by hand and dated meticulously. 

12/1/ 1993

_I miss you. I wonder where you must be now, so far from our home here. Will you come back, my cherie? Or have you gone for good? I miss you so terribly. No one else can replace you. What’s happened has happened, but who can say what the reality is? I know our reality was here. We made it for ourselves. I think you must be building a new one somewhere else now. One day, I’ll find it. _

11/10/1994

_I have moved out of our apartment. The bakers made me too sad. We robbed it the night before we moved. Insurance will cover it all. They will finally be able to afford a new mixer that won’t bang when they turn it on. I should have thought of it sooner. Would you have stayed if I had?_

8/14/1995

_You are good at your job. I am proud of you, cherie. _

9/22/1996

_You can come back to us. Visit me. I miss you. I do not care about any of it. I miss you terribly. I will make a deal with them. Me for you. _

The letters continued. Several a year, all of varied lengths. Some described Celine’s operations, expansions as she moved from a small-time madame and landlord to larger operations and schemes. Wendy could feel the changes in the paper textures. White tree fiber gave way to off-white cotton rag. It held the scent of the room. Wendy could nearly hear the scratch of the pen and the scent of Celine’s perfume as she wrote. She read every letter, took in every word. She hated that they still made her cry. 

_You are the queen._ She sat down at her chess board, fingertips grazing the varnished tops of the pieces. She liked the rook especially. It was under-appreciated, she felt. She liked its simplicity, the way the linear lines of the tower mimicked its linear lines of motions. She touched each piece in the line with reverence, working inward toward the king and queen at the center. 

As a child, she’d always loathed the idea of the king and queen match up. It seemed unnecessary. As a chess player, she’d grown even less fond of the idea. Why tether the queen to such a useless piece, hopping from space to space, trying desperately not to die, while the queen zoomed across the board, a focal point of strategy, tactics, and power? The queen was so much more interesting.

Wendy messaged Stella back several hours later, only after having taken the time to meditate in the side room off her office. She had packed the letters and her emotions away in the box, locking it securely inside the office’s wall safe. She’d put Celine in a box, too, if she had her way. 

Five hours more and they are sitting in a nice tasting room with several wine flights in front of them. Stella has her normal after-hours swagger that makes Wendy feel simultaneously off and on her game. She loved watching Stella hold her wine glass. It was so effortlessly sexy, Wendy felt like she was drowning in it. 

Stella was turned on. The warmth of wine and Wendy’s sharp confidence made her tingle and she wished the tasting room was closer to her flat because the best outcome of this night would undoubtedly be the two of them and a few cases of wine at home, naked.

Only while a little buzzed is Stella able to recognize how completely perfect Wendy is for her. She amplifies everything around her.  _Fuck Celine_ , she thinks. Wendy is Wendy and Wendy is blonde and ferocious. Fuck Celine for trying to make her anything else. She pulls Wendy to her mouth, kissing her with both reserve and abandon. She can taste the Riesling on her tongue and it makes her kiss deeper until she realizes they can no longer hide behind the curtain of her hair and Wendy’s turned head.

“That was pleasant,” Wendy murmurs with a smile. Her blush is biological, not shy. 

“Come home with me.”

“You haven’t bought any wine,” Wendy notes.

“Let’s buy some then.” Stella gestures the sommelier to them, talking about the tasting notes and compiling an order that amounts to three cases of wine. If she didn’t know better, Wendy would suspect Stella was nursing a drinking problem. However, like nearly every other facet of Stella’s private life, she drankas a form of hedonism. As it turned out, Wendy quite liked that about her. 

The taxi ride was warm, the two women sitting together like conspirators in the backseat, making eyes and stealing kisses until they arrived at Stella’s rented flat. The cloud ceiling hung low, muffling the city in its wake. Wendy slid her hand beneath Stella’s coat, feeling the slopes of her body as the former searched for her keys in her small purse, triumphing as Wendy began to venture into more forbidden territory. Stella liked this Wendy. Wendy in charge. Wendy in control of herself and everyone and everything else. It made her swoon. This, she notes in the back her mind, must have been the woman Cassandra was running from. Stella was glad she’d been left in the dust. 

They tumbled onto the sofa, Wendy’s body pressing Stella into the cushions, planting her knee between Stella’s thighs as the clawed at one another’s clothing, shedding outerwear, blouses, and undergarments layer by layer until Stella was one pair of panties away from nudity and Wendy following not far behind.  Wendy engulfed her like a fire. They parted sweaty and flushed, Stella running her hands through the mussed up mess of Wendy’s bed hair.

“Don’t dye it,” Stella implored with a whisper. Wendy gazed down at with her with affection. 

“And why not?”

“I like it this way,” Stella stated, holding Wendy’s head gently in her hands. 

“I’ll still be the same underneath,” Wendy smiled. 

“Do you promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”


	15. XO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday at home.

Wendy spends Sunday with Stella, wrapped around her in her arms. Her mobiles rest on her hardwood nightstand. She doesn’t want to leave, barely feels the need to leave the bed. It’s perfect. 

It come crashing down on Sunday evening, when her work mobile begins to rattle and vibrate on the stand. Wendy retrieves it slowly, willing it to be false alarm. 

It’s not. It’s Morgan, who is talking fast and hushed until Wendy has enough of the near hyperventilation on the other end of the line.

“Stop. Now. Explain to me why it is you called me on Sunday at,” she picks up her personal mobile to check the time, “6pm?” Stella recognizes Wendy’s business voice, removing herself from the mess of covers and sliding into her robe. As an afterthought, she picks up her wireless earbuds off her own bedside table and slips them in before strolling into the en suite bathroom to pee. She shuts the door with a soft thud.

Morgan beginsand Wendy can practically see her chewing her lip, “Um… You see, Jerome and I needed some space and he… well he’s gone. But there’s good news!” 

“You’ve lost your partner at there is  _good news_?” 

“Yes! Yes, there is! See, I have Seb now. He’s kinda… out of it. But, you know, it’ll wear off. He’ll be fine. You know, how it goes…”

“What will wear off, Morgan.”

“Well, he’s… you know…  _high_ ,” she whispers.

“He’s what? No.” Stella can see Wendy’s irritation building in her shoulders as Wendy pauses to cut off the inevitable string of unnecessary explanation. “What is he high on?”

“Weed.”

“Marijuana. You’re saying my agent is high on marijuana?”

“Yeah, he’s eaten like half the vending machine. Also, can I ask why we got assigned to this place? It’s like barely not a hostel. I thought Sebby was just a dude when he stumbled up here. And it’s like a million degrees. It’s like someone just cranked the heater the whole time…”

“You are gathering information on the abduction of two international intelligence agents and you are complaining about your  _accommodation_. Whilst you are informing your director that you have _lost_ your partner,” Wendy restates, the edge in her voice more than enough to let Morgan know she was skating on very thin ice.

“You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m sorry. So…”

“What is it?” Wendy asks, turning to roll her eyes at Stella and mouth “I’m sorry” across the room to where Stella is leaning on the doorjamb. Her eyes comb over Stella’s form, bathed in the light of the bedroom lamps and the shadows looming from the darkness of the hall. Wendy listens as Morgan leaps head on into a new mess of questions, noting the cord resting on Stella’s neck under her hair. She gestures to it with her hands and mimes a thank you. Stella smiles and mimes back, drawing a heart in the air with her two index fingers before disappearing into the hallway. 

“I just don’t know what to do because, you know, I’ve never been solo before and I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to  do  with him when he’s so … like this,” Morgan rambled. 

“Morgan,” Wendy interjected sharply. “You will not  do  anything. You will secure your room and wait until another agent arrives to collect you and Hendshaw. Tomorrow. Is that understood?”

“Wait, I’m leaving? But what about J-Bird? I can’t just let him get kidnapped,” Morgan objected. 

“As difficult as it seems to be for you, this agency is well equipped to handle incidents such as these and far beyond without your interferences.” Wendy replied. She could hear Morgan’s breath falter. She continued, softening her voice slightly. “Your job is done. It’s time for the next team to come in.” Morgan sighed. 

“It’s my fault isn’t it?”

“There is no fault at this time. You will be debriefed and the incidents sent to our post-operative analysis team.”

“But...”

“No.” Wendy interjected steadfastly. “Shame and guilt are luxuries we cannot afford. You will return with Hendshaw to London. It is final.” Morgan swallowed the waver in her voice. 

“Ok, boss. It’s over the channel and through the woods to London town we go.” Wendy could picture the dejected little mock salute Morgan tended to give her by way of closure when she felt bad. 

Wendy cut the line, replacing the phone on the bedside table and searching for a robe of her own to commandeer. Preferably one with pockets.

Downstairs, Stella was sipping a bulbous glass of Merlot. Wendy’s footfalls creaked on the stairs and she smiled as her as-of-yet still blonde lover entered the kitchen wearing a short black dressing gown, the two front pockets weighted with what Stella could only assumed were here twin mobile phones. 

“You look slinky,” she observed with a sip of wine.

“Thank you for your understanding, Stella,” Wendy said, ignoring the flirtatious observation.

“You don’t need to thank me. Have a drink with me,” she said, offering her glass to Wendy. She accepted with a grateful nod, taking the glass and downing a swig like a sailor getting into communion wine. 

“Things falling apart?”

“Nearly.” Wendy shook her head, glancing at Stella from the corner of her eye as she leaned over the counter, “I’m being played with.”

“Are you good at games?”

“Yes,” Wendy acknowledged. “I played chess very well through university.”

“Then,” Stella said, wrapping her arms around Wendy’s waist and pressing her cheek to Wendy’s hair, “You’re well prepared, aren’t you?” Wendy turned her head to kiss the side of Stella’s mouth.

“You’re very sweet.”

Stella laughed outright. “I do believe that’s the first time that’s ever been said.” Wendy kissed her again.

“It doesn’t matter. I know it’s true.” Wendy kissed her a third time for good measure, holding her lips to Stella with deliberate care and attention. “You’re sweet, Stella Gibson. I won’t let you forget.” Stella smiled in spite of herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s just a general observation, but can be applied in this instance very appropriately, too.  
Also, air hearts to the two of you that asked for this to keep going.


	16. Mango Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy recruits an accomplice to help her and achieves a new clarity in her relationship with Stella.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mango Tree is a beautiful song. That’s it for now. See the end for more.

Wendy leaves Sunday night with resolve. She _will_ find Celine. She  _ will  _ get to the bottom of the riddle. She  _ will  _ get Stella the clearances to stay in her home. All necessary steps and Wendy is fully prepared to execute them.

She pulls her team into a meeting on Monday in which she fleshes out the plan for Morgan’s retrieval, as well as a further plan to initiate contact with Celine. She reveals as little as possible and deliberately says nothing of the letters locked in her wall.

She pulls Gordon, too. She has more color in her cheeks and the dye across her torso is almost gone. Gordon looks ashamed of herself as she sits down across from Wendy. Her shaggy dark fringe covers her eyebrows and pokes into her vision. 

“Shame is not a luxury we can afford,” Wendy informs her. 

“I didn’t do my job,” Gordon says, staring at the paperweight on Wendy’s desk by way of explanation. “I did not execute this mission to the best of my ability. I should have known better. We had the intel. We  had it .” Gordon shakes her head slowly. “I could have done better.”

“I am reassigning you, Gordon.”

“I understand, ma’am,” Gordon agreed with a somber nod. 

“You will be on the post-operative assessment team handling the return of Morgan Freeman and Sebastian Hendshaw.” Gordon’s head jerks up in surprise. “You will be second in the chain of command. I want your insight. You didn’t live up to your abilities. Show me better.” 

Gordon nods once more.  _A chance is a chance_ . Wendy nods in return. “Your assignment information will be updated this afternoon.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Gordon said, rising from the chair and standing at full height before giving a final nod and excusing herself.

In the vacant room, Stella reconsidered her plan once more. She couldn’t wait any more. She dialed the number from memory, retrospectively hoping the number hadn’t changed.

“Scully,” came an unmistakably American voice, surprisingly alert given the time of night. 

“Dana,” Wendy said warmly, “It’s good to hear from you.” 

“You called me, Wendy,” Scully replied. No nonsense, as always. Wendy’s lips quirked into a subtle smile. 

“So I did. I wonder if you might be interested in helping me with something.”

“You say that, and then I always seem to find myself alone in Europe with a gun in my face,” Dana replied.

“You won’t. This is different,” Wendy said. 

“Dare I ask?” 

“I need to be in the field and I need a field agent from outside my agency.”

“So, you’ve got a mole problem,” Scully deduces, sounding almost bored, although Wendy chooses to read the tone as skeptical. Dana always was. 

“It’s possible. I’d rather not take chances. I can get you temporary clearances in no time at all.“

“I should hope so, Director,” Dana smirked. “You’d have an easier time with Company agent,” she added. 

“I know. I don’t want your Company in on this.” Wendy wishes they still had corded phones so she could wind her fingers in the coils. “Dana, I am asking you as a personal favor. No espionage. I promise. You’re my first pick, but I can go elsewhere.”

“Alright,” Dana replied. “Fax me everything and book me a flight.” 

“Thank you, Dana.”

“Just remember that you owe me a personal favor next time I need one.” 

“I never forget, Dana. Thank you.”

Telling Stella is more difficult than she imagined. 

She starts with the phone call, which goes to voicemail. She asks Stella to call her back. Politely. She doesn’t want to alarm her, or worse, upset her. 

When she finally hears Stella knock on her door, she feels underprepared.

Stella kisses her hello. It’s deep and consuming and Wendy nearly gives up her plan for the night in favor of falling into bed with Stella then and there. They stand in the foyer with their foreheads pressed together and it feels like all of time and space stills around them. 

“I have to tell you something,” Wendy whispers, hands resting on Stella’s waist.

“What is it?” Stella asks. She knows this tone well already. It’s contrition. 

“It’s about everything with Celine,” Wendy answers. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Do we need to?”

“Maybe,” Wendy admits. Stella nods almost imperceptibly and takes Wendy’s hands in hers. Wendy tugs her into the sitting room, sitting on the sofa and pulling Stella down beside her. 

“What is it?” Stella asks again, more insistent. Wendy tucks her feet under her before replying.

“I need to go away to meet with Celine. I have to. I just needed you to know.” It’s matter-of-fact. 

“You shouldn’t be going alone.” Wendy weaves her fingers between Stella’s. 

“I’m not.” Wendy straightens her back, regaining herself. “I called in a favor with an old friend of mine. She was a field agent in the States. Trained and licensed physician. I know she’s there for me. No double-cross. You’d like her.”

“I see,” Stella nods. 

“We will be gone for a while. Not a long time, but enough to find Celine and do whatever needs to be done.”

“Wendy,” Stella interjects. Wendy holds her hand up in protest. 

“I needed you to know.”

“Are you going to come home?”

“That’s what Dana is for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... that’s the twist. Well, one twist. We’ll see what happens.   
How do we feel?


	17. Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully arrives in London.

Once Dana arrives, it feels like a mad dash to leave. Dana is picked up by Gordon and put up in a pricey room at the center of town. Stella helps Wendy pack, triaging clothes, toiletries, and shoes that end up packed away next to covert gadgets in innocuous containers. Stella packs a pair of her own pajamas for Wendy, a move that does not escape Wendy’s notice. 

They don’t talk about it, but Wendy pauses in the middle of rolling a pair of jeans to give Stella a long kiss. For the first time in a very long time, she doesn’t want to leave.

Stella refuses to let her take a cab the next morning. Instead, she drives them both to the train, where Dana is waiting just inside the ticketed zone, wearing a blouse, blazer, and slacks. She looks like an bureaucrat.

Stella walks her to the edge of the public area and smiles solemnly when Wendy turns to say goodbye. She can see moisture gathering in her eyes. 

“Hey,” Wendy says softly, fingers brushing her face gently. 

“Hi,” Stella answers, smiling still. Wendy kisses her reverently. “I promise I’ll come home,” she whispers, grasping Stella to her in a tight embrace. Stella nods wordlessly, still smiling that sad somber smile that cracks Wendy’s heart down the center. Wendy kisses her again, then releases her, and walks through the ticket gate. 

Dana joins her in step as they make their way to the platform. “So, who is she?” Dana asks, foregoing the pleasantries. In nearly 20 years of knowing one another, they had said enough hellos and goodbyes to last. 

Stella shakes her head, meeting Dana’s eyes in a sideways glance. 

“How to explain.” She lets out a breath she’d been holding as they climb onto the train, settling into their compartment. 

“Her name is Stella. Gibson.”

“How did you meet her?” Dana settled into her seat facing Wendy. 

“At a bar. I blew her off at first. And then I lied to her.” 

“Wendy, you can’t keep doing that.” Dana’s exasperation is obvious but not malicious. 

“I know. She knows now. In a manner of speaking.” 

“Oh, Wendy.” Dana’s knowing tone is both a comfort and an aggregation. “You didn’t tell her about Celine, did you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Wendy repeats, staring out the window as passengers continue to board and shuffle into their seats and compartments. 

“What about us?” Dana asked, her voice dropping in register and volume.

“No,” Wendy shook her head. 

“Wendy... you’re sabotaging yourself. Why wouldn’t you say something?”

“Dana, you don’t understand. You have your Mulder.” Wendy’s voice enters a dangerous territory. Dana knows better. 

“Use your venom voice, Wendy. I don’t care. You’re the one that likes her. I’m trying to help.”

Wendy stares out the window for the next 15 minutes until the train departs.

“I couldn’t tell her because I don’t know what to say about us, Dana. There’s half a lifetime to explain. I don’t know where to start or how to end.”

Dana reaches for Wendy, caressing her face softly. 

“There is no end,” she murmurs, allowing Wendy to lean her face into her hand, allowing her thumb to stroke the soft skin of her cheeks. 

“I missed you,” Wendy whispered. The implication scared her. She’d been a lion for Celine, but always a fool for Dana. 

“I missed you, too,” Dana whispered, suddenly right in front of her. Wendy shuddered as another long held breath escaped her, arms falling slack to her body before allowing herself to reach for Dana, to slide her hand between her jacket and her blouse, finding familiar routes across her waist and torso, gently pulling on Dana until her knees touched the carpet of the cabin. Standing on her knees she was still roughly even with Wendy. Wendy’s hand receded to Dana’s golden red hair. Their mouths scarcely moved, breathing in the remnants of air expelled by the other. 

“Is this what you want?” Dana asked, her voice calm and soft. 

“I don’t know, Dana,” Wendy confessed, pressing her forehead gently to Dana’s as she released her waist, mirroring her hands on either side of Dana’s head.

Dana nodded silently, allowing Wendy to take her time, catch her breath. Wendy did not.

Wendy leaned in and pressed their lips together with a sloppy imprecision reserved for the most familiar of lovers. She slid their lips together until the seemed to lock into place, allowing Dana, to tug her bottom lip into her own mouth, sucking and scraping it until Wendy allowed herself to whine, leaning further into Dana. Her Dana. 

She opened her legs, allowing Dana to shuffle between them, still kissing her. Dana’s hands slid under her skirt, causing her to yelp as Dana rubbed her palm firmly between Wendy’s thighs. Dana released her mouth and began sucking and teasing the corner of her neck and shoulder. Wendy could feel her skin bruising. She could feel very fiber in her being, electrified.

“Dana,” she moaned. It’s wanton. She missed this. Dana’s fingers tug at their underwear, pulling them aside as Wendy slid down in the chair, opening herself up and forcing Dana to bend over her to continue her ministrations on Wendy’s neck. She pecks with her lips as her fingers work further into Wendy. 

“Are you thinking about her?” Dana asks. Wendy wasn’t, but the suggestion was irresistible. Wendy bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to lessen the overstimulation that comes from being with Dana and imagining Stella.

She reaches for Dana, finding the strap of her bra fallen down on off her shoulder. She pulls the button closures of Dana’s blouse open, teasing Dana as she struggles to maintain focus on Wendy. 

“Dana!” She gasp as as Dana’s fingers quirk just so. In her mind, she’s imagining Stella, too. Imagining doing these things with Stella, about seeing Stella like this. She moans Stella’s name, too. 

It’s all too much to bear and it feels like it’s barely begun by the time its over, Dana collapsed atop Wendy’s slouching form, blouse open, brassiere askew. Wendy strokes Dana’s red hair as she comes down from her own self-induced orgasm. 

“Are you going to tell her?” Dana asks, breath softly tickling Wendy’s bare neck. 

“Tell her what?” Wendy asks, continuing to run her hands through Dana’s hair. 

“That you love her, Wendy,” Dana replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Nothing good has ever come from that, Dana, and you know it.” Dana slowly extricates herself from their post-coital heap.

“Just because it hasn’t, doesn’t mean it won’t.” 

“How do you know?”

“How do you?” Dana retorts, eyebrow quirking up at Wendy as she rebuttons her blouse. She shifts, settling into her seat, shaking off the limpness of the afterglow. “I’m you’re friend. Trust me. If you love her, you’ve got to tell her. And I know you do.”

Wendy shakes her head. “Why would she want to be with me, Dana? When I’m off doing this,” she says, waving between them. “And this,” she gestures to the car around them and the specter of Celine that has fallen over her life. 

“Why don’t you tell her? You can’t expect her to understand things magically. She has to  know .”

“About this?” Wendy gestures between them again, leaning back into her chair in exasperation.

“Why not?” Dana presses. “Has she ever indicated that it would upset her? Has she ever spoken to you about exclusivity? Don’t make assumptions because you’re scared of what she hasn’t said.”

“What makes you think I’m afraid at all?”

“Wendy,” Dana bends forward again, elbows on her knees as she squares herself to Wendy. “I know you. You oscillate between four major emotions: fear, joy, cunning, and rage. I know you well enough to know you’re afraid of most of the women you’re with, even if you’re not afraid of  them per se.”

“Except you.”

“Except me.” Dana confirms. “So let me help you, Wendy. This one is special.”

“I don’t know what to say, Dana. How can I ever explain you and I?”

“I am your friend. I always will be.” 

“But how do you know?” Wendy asks, her voice soft and unsteady. 

“I have Mulder. I know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This train is totally off the tracks. I have a plan, but honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this direction. I didn’t plan it at all. In fact, I nearly deleted this chapter, but I wanted to play with it and see how it worked. Interesting? Terrible? This whole story is basically just those two questions over and over again, so you probably know the drill. Tell me what you think!


	18. Life Itself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is Wendy homesick?

They arrive in Paris in the evening. It’s cold and Wendy goads Dana into going out for the hair dye.

The apartment is cozy and small. The furniture is a smattering of IKEA pieces and things that look like they’ve been in that very spot since the Second World War. Wendy sweeps it diligently for bugs and weak points while Dana is out. She takes longer than anticipated and Wendy eventually finds herself putting their clothes away in the shared wardrobe. It feels bizarre. She leaves Stella’s pajamas in the suitcase.

When Dana returns, she’s saddled with reusable shopping bags and it’s clear she’s been poking around neighborhood. She brought them gyros and it makes Wendy’s heart twist. Dana catches her stare,

“Did I miss something?” She asks, putting her box of müsli in the cupboard. Wendy shook her head.

“One of our first dates was at a gyro shop.”

“And here I thought romance was dead,” Dana deadpanned, sorting the rest of the groceries.

“I know.” Wendy grimaces, mostly at herself. “Not that you were good at romance either.”

“I never tried to romance you, Wendy.”

“I wasn’t talking about me. You weren’t exactly chocolates and red roses for Mulder, either. Or that sweet man that worked with you that got murdered on your birthday.”

“I don’t know why you always bring him up,” Dana said with an eye roll, peeling back the wrapper of her gyro. “That’s not the point anyway. I’m not wooing. You are.” Wendy opens her own sandwich, standing over the sink as Dana leans on the counter.

“I liked the gyro date.”

“Add that to your list of things to tell her. You love her. You liked the gyro date. And me. You have to tell her about that too.”

“I don’t want to, Dana.” Wendy snapped.

“You’re so thick sometimes,” Dana observed. “You can’t possibly think it’s better not to tell her, can you? I’m sure she’s met more than a few friends with benefits before. She’s obviously not afraid of sex.”

“You’re such a know-it-all,” Wendy griped. Dana nudged her shoulder with her own, eyes light and mouth full of food. 20 years. Her expression is unmistakable. _You missed me_.

“Finish eating so we can dye my hair,” Wendy commands. It’s less than authoritative when directed at Dana, who shrugs and chews, nonplussed.

There is one bed for them both. They climb in like they’ve done a hundred times. Dana is wearing one of Mulder’s shirts and Wendy wishes she was wearing Stella’s pajamas after all.

“Stop squirming,” Dana admonishes. Wendy can’t get comfortable.

“Don’t be such a cunt,” Wendy replies. It lacks malice. Dana has been waiting for the inaugural declaration of her cuntiness for this trip. It’s practically Wendy’s nickname for her. She smiles.

“Your moody,” Dana observes.

“I’m uncomfortable and brunette,” Wendy says by way of answer.

“You’ll be fine,” Dana dismisses her, pulling the sheets up around her. “And you look good as a brunette,” she adds. “It makes you look young.”

“Go to sleep,” Wendy commands with a roll of her eyes as she flicks the bedside lamp out.

“Did you call her?” Dana asked.

“Who?”

“Stella.”

“No.”

“You should.”

“This again?” Wendy moans.

“Friends don’t let friends do stupid things.”

“Sure, Dana.” Wendy rolls her eyes in the darkness. They both feel it.

Stella knew better than to expect a text from Wendy, so she’s not surprised when she doesn’t get one. She pushes it to the back of her mind and considers whether or not it’s worth it to wander down to the cocktail bar down the road from her office — the one that’s too posh for her colleagues and the beat cops — to find herself a bit of company.

She decides she’d rather be at home, taking care of herself and thinking about Wendy. She goes to the pool on the way home and thinks about how she doesn't miss Wendy, or the smell of her perfume in her car. 

She collects her mail absent-mindedly, pausing only when she feels a stiff envelope in with the collection of magazines and soft envelopes of bills. It’s small and thin. She recognizes Wendy’s address on the return envelope and tears it open.

The letter inside doesn’t sound like Wendy, and it certainly doesn’t look like her. The handwriting is inky and expressive, and the words amounted to what could at best be a riddle, if not simple ramblings. She reads the letter twice through.

_On my way to London, I saw a woman with seven lovers. Each lover had seven parcels, each parcel had seven secrets, each secret had seven lies, and each lie had seven truths. Lovers, parcels, secrets, and lies, how many were going to St. Ives?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who sent the letter, I wonder?
> 
> Also, comments make me happy and motivate me :)


	19. Waiting Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy is cranky and Stella is dreaming.

Wendy feels better in the morning. The sun filters in their windows through the curtains and she’s reminded how easy it is to be with Dana. After two decades of friendship and occasional sex, they’ve developed a comfortable and unapologetically frank relationship with one another that feels like a gem among stones. She feels better having Dana with her.

She misses Stella, though. She heard Americans talk about “missing something fierce”, but never quite understood the expression until laying in bed in Paris with Dana, mind turning over endless imaginings about Stella, where she might be, whether she missed her too. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Dana breaks into her train of thought. She’s starring at Wendy with those bright blue eyes and Wendy fights the urge to cry she’s so overcome with love. Dana can read it all over her face.

“Being brunette makes you sappy,” Dana teases. It makes Wendy want to cry even more. She missed her best friend. 

They stay cuddled together in bed until the city noises come to life around them and they can no longer ignore the world outside. Wendy makes them müsli while Dana showers. It feels strange when her new brown hair falls into her face. 

By the time Dana strolls into their tiny kitchen towel drying her hair, Wendy is halfway through breakfast, slowly chewing the oats like a cow chewing cud. 

“Don’t look so glum,” Dana says in a tone that’s nearly chipper. “So, are you going to tell me the plan or are we going sit in this apartment all day?”

“I don’t know where she is, Dana. It’s called reconnaissance.”

“It’s called baiting. You brought us here to wait on the assumption she’s going to come to you because of the letters. Am I wrong?”

“You’re enthusiasm is inspiring,” Wendy remarks sarcastically. 

“This apartment is hideous and were in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, forgive me if I don’t want to spent yet another day cooped up in the inside another beige room.”

“You’re the one that chose to work in a basement,” Wendy retorted as Dana slid into the breakfast nook beside her. 

“Come on,” Dana says patting her thigh. “We’ll go to Musée d’Orsay. I know how you like Impressionism.”

Without Wendy, Stella finds she has much more time on her hands. She chooses to devote most of this time to swimming and playing the piano. On a whim she buys a chessboard, and sets it up in the corner of her office. It makes the room look stately and distinguished. Wendy would appreciate it. 

Without an opponent or partner, the chessboard goes unused, with the exception of serving as a storage spot for the letter, which she doesn’t know what to make of. She doesn’t devote much time to trying, though. It’s a simple, albeit odd, riddle. Among everything else, she cannot quite muster the concern to care much about it. It is nothing more than an unsettling token in an unsettling world. Stella opts to concentrate on her actual work. 

When she swims, Stella focuses solely on the line at the bottom of the pool. It’s the only guide she needs. After a lifetime in regulation pools, she knows it’s signals like an extension of her own perception. It’s rejuvenating to block out the world and just swim the length of the black line over and over again. 

She had an ex girlfriend named Louise who rode motorbikes and swiped wallets. Louise had always remarked that the yellow lines of the road were just like the lines on the bottom of the pool. They showed you where to go, kept you on track. Stella was never sure she bought into the metaphor. 

Stella drove home looking at the lines on the road and listening to a song called “Youth” playing on the radio. She doesn’t change the station, though she normally would, instead letting it play out and into the next as she pulls onto her street. She thinks about nothing except the fleeting recognition that her hair smelled vaguely like chlorine and that she needed to replenish the shampoo bottle in her locker. 

She never saw Wendy with a hair color other than blonde. As she brushes the lingering tangles out of her own newly cleansed hair, she imagines that brown hair might soften Wendy’s appearance. She thinks about Dana, Wendy’s partner, too. The way the word twists in her stomach is inexplicable, not quite jealousy, but not quite comfort either. Her reaction is not specific to Dana. Stella doesn’t know her. And that’s precisely the crux. She believes in Wendy’s professional excellence. She knows her capacity for deceit firsthand. She knows Wendy selected Dana to accompany her without absolute care and trust. She yearns for Wendy’s trust. 

Stella wakes up with a start, breathing hard, blinking rapidly awake in the dark of her bedroom. Her hands instinctively reach for the bedside table, twisting her body in the net of sheets as she searches for her dream journal in the bedside table. 

Wendy and I are in a tactical helicopter with open doors. She’s on the ladder. She lets go. I dive out of the helicopter after her .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a relatively uneventful chapter, this took a rather long time. I just had to ruminate, especially on Wendy and Scully. Lady friendship is no joke.  
Thoughts?


	20. The Way I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day? Guess I must be making up for last time. More at the end.

Dana drags her out of the apartment looking every bit the Yankee she is. Her jeans as skinny and she’s wearing a t-shirt sporting the name of some middle-of-nowhere place she probably visited on her many journey across the continental United States with Mulder. Wendy almost wishes she had brought her Banff tee. She thinks Dana would have gotten a kick out of how long it lasted.

Fortunately, Dana’s t-shirt is covered up by her thick wool coat and scarf that looks very home-spun. She assumes it was a gift from someone in the family. Maybe even Mulder, although she finds it hard to imagine him with a ball of yarn and knitting needles.

The air is so cool and crisp, it makes Dana’s cheeks pink almost immediately. Dana catches her staring.

“Come on!” She smiles, reaching for Wendy’s hand with her own, gloved in leather. Wendy grasps her hand instinctively and allows Dana to tug her toward the Metro station. It’s a relief.

“It feels like we’re kids again,” Dana whispered to her as they huddled together on the subway car.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Wendy answers rhetorically.

“You were so good for me,” she continues. “After the academy. I didn’t have any friends.”

“Except that instructor.”

“You know he wasn’t a _friend_.” Dana went silent for a moment. “Celine isn’t your friend either.” Wendy opened her mouth to interrupt, to tell her all the ways she knew Celine _wasn’t _her friend, but was silenced with a presumptive wave of Dana’s hand.

“No. Wendy, I know you know this, but you need to _hear _it. Celine is not your friend. She doesn’t want to help you or love you. She wants to possess you. I know you know that. And I know that you never got over her. Please just promise me you won’t let her get in your head?” Wendy nodded mutely. Dana kissed her cheek.

“When did you get so wise?” Wendy asked. Dana looked at her with eyes that spoke untold words, volumes upon volumes of shared stories. Wendy kissed her cheek as the car pulled to a stop at a station platform, removing her lips only as the door closing signal began to sound again.

Stella’s car was warm. She felt the hood with her bare hand to be sure. She studied the rain tracks on the windows. It looked like it had been driving. She held the keys in her hand, her body absolutely still with the coiling tension of an animal about to run. Nothing moved except the wind, rustling the wind and tousling her hair as she stood stock-still in her drive.

When the moment of immediate danger seemed to have passed, she approached the drivers door slowly, stalking toward it until she was able to visually clear the car. There was an envelope on the driver’s seat, the same stiff sort that the riddle had come in. Reaching in to retrieve it, she noted the car smelled like perfume.

She opened it in the car, turning the envelope over in her hands and peeling the opening flap from the body of the envelope, cognizant but also unimpeded by the knowledge that she was corrupting potential evidence. She knew it would never be run anyway. Inside, the letter was short. It wasn’t a riddle, but a directive.

_You and I, we’re going to St. Ives._

Stella read it once, eyes running over the looping script quickly, before shoving it back in the envelope and tossing it into the glovebox. She was in no mood to be trifled with. She’d hand off the investigation — which would in all likelihood be limited to temporary surveillance until the coast was deemed clear — to someone else. Of all the ways she’d been harassed, letters were by far the most petty.

A knock on her window startles her from her irate internal monologue. The woman, young and pretty, smiles apologetically, bangs falling into her eyes as she leans down to talk into the barely-there crack between the window and the door.

“Ma’am, your door is open,” she says gesturing to Stella’s front door, which is subtly ajar. Stella doesn’t move and the woman’s smile falters slightly. “Is something wrong?” She asks more seriously. Stella grips the steering wheel, biding time. “Are you ok?” The woman asks again.” Stella’s eyes shoot her a warning glance.

“You need to leave.”

“What?”

“Right now. Go. Right now.” The woman backs away from the car, apprehensive. There’s fear where uncertainty once resided on her face. Stella does not leave the car. She watches slowly as the door swings open from the inside, pulling back into the house and giving way to a small woman in a large coat on the doorstep. Her face is clean, lips red. She waves to Stella before closing the door behind her, locking it, and walking leisurely to the car. She looks like a cat, slinky as smooth, eyes impenetrable. Stella realizes too late that she is the canary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are happening now, aren't they? What going on with Wendy and Dana? And what about Stella and those letters? What's the deal with St. Ives?  
What do you think?


	21. No You Don't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella goes to St. Ives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mon chou is a French quirk of endearment. It means "my cabbage." Charming.

Stella wakes up in the passenger’s seat of her own car, groggy and feeling vaguely hung over. She rolls her neck out and her shoulders. _One thing at a time._ The redhead from her house is driving, wearing big sunglasses and leather gloves. They’re on the M4.

“You’re awake,” she observes, her voice carrying a Francophone accent that Stella can’t place precisely, but recognizes from her youth as _snooty. _Stella doesn’t need a formal introduction. _Celine_.

Her wrists are held together by handcuffs, not standard issue, but the soft plush handcuffs you can buy for a tenner at the local sex shop. She jerks her wrists apart, the cuffs absorbing her movement and holding firm.

“Fiery, non? You and Dana should exchange hair colors.” _Dana_… Stella stills, but doesn’t reply. She refuses to cede any information before she has some of her own. Celine seems to shrug, although it’s difficult to tell with her body cocooned in her coat. “Ah, Stella,” she continues, drawing out the vowels, “you are so enigmatic, non? So pretty. It’s no wonder, you know?”

“Where are we going?” She asks, impassive.

“St. Ives, of course! I told you, mon chou. You and I, we are going to St. Ives!” Her enthusiasm is charismatic, but wild, like a child issuing a playful demand for cake. She shook her head, “Stella… my cabbage. We’re going to St. Ives. I’m so tired of waiting.”

Stella allows her hands to rest in her lap. Her mind doesn’t swim or panic. She simply watches the road and tries to imagine the next move, the next step.

“How far away are we?” She asks quietly. “I need to use the loo.”

“Stella…” Celine practically groans in exasperation at the inconvenience of it all. “We have only just passed Swinton!”

“Swindon,” Stella corrects absently.

“Oui, oui, Swindon. You have to wait.” Stella stares out the window and tries to imagine Wendy somewhere, hand in hand with Dana. Something inside her breaks; she feels like she could wither and blow away in the wind.

“I’m not interested in whatever your plot is, Celine. And I’m certainly not your cabbage. Not for Wendy, not for anybody. I will not be your damsel in distress.”

“Mais non! Stella, you misunderstand me,” Celine exclaims.

“How exactly? You’re taking me to some forsaken beachside town in the corner of this fucking country for what end? Surely you must have larger fish in the pond.”

“What is it you people have with these _ponds_. Not everything is a pond!” Celine launches herself, seemingly unconcerned by Stella’s statement as much as her words.

“I never noticed,” Stella snarks. “Now well and truly fuck off.” Celine huffs like a petulant child.

“You could be a bit grateful,” she mutters. “I take you to a beautiful vacation and not even a merci… They say French are rude.”

“You’ve kidnapped me,” Stella points out by way of explanation.

“Yes, but I don’t _care _about you,” Celine explains, as if the distinction somehow clarifies the situation.

“What’s the fucking point, then?”

“Ah,” Celine smiles smuggly, “you know. Our girl.”

“I think you misjudge her affection for me.”

“Non, cabbage, you misjudge.” She shakes her head. “You British never understand one another. You’re too busy keeping your lips stiff!” Celine looks perturbed, shaking her head. “No matter now.”

“This charade is pathetic.” Stella replies, her voice low and even. The words fall from her mouth, as though summoned forth from her. She recognizes the feeling. Disgust. Contempt. “You don’t have any right to either of us. She left you, didn’t she?” It’s not a question. “She left you and you couldn’t stand it could you? The one thing you couldn’t _own _or _take_. She didn’t just leave you. She left your whole world.” Stella balls her hands into fists, wishing she could pry her wrists and bones apart. “You think you can just take things. Take people. You think only your will matters.”

“You fascinate me, mon chou,” Celine all but coos.

“I despise you,” Stella replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do we think? (I genuinely need to know if I'm going to keep this up.)


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they're still driving...

Celine is unwilling to let the car ride pass in peaceful silence. Now that Stella is awake, she refuses to let her rest further, instead prodding her with questions about the pronunciation of city names and mundane questions about trees, cars, anything that came to mind. Stella’s answers were terse and cursory.

“You’re so tense, mon chou. There is no need. Soon we’ll be there!” Stella does not know what Wendy say in Celine. “No need to look so sour. We’ll have fun, you’ll see. And you needn’t fret about Wendy. She’ll be back were she belongs soon.” What that means exactly, Stella isn’t sure. “She was never happy with you, my cabbage. How could she be? Her whole life was running away from people. From me. Me! It’s not her fault. She couldn’t have loved you fully,” Celine continues with a shrug. “She called Dana, non?” Another shrug. “She always goes back to Dana. Because she cannot go back to me. You see? It’s all surrogacy. But why? Why not have what you really want? Why? You know.” Celine nods. “How many men did you sleep with just —“ Celine waves her hand flippantly.

“You are in no position to judge what I do with my own body.”

“Mais non! This is my point! _You _always do what you want, non? Our poor Wendy, non. She doesn’t do that. She _wants_ someone to love. But you see, she cannot. She cannot love you like you cannot love her. Dana loves her, but, ah, she cannot love Dana either. Because she only loves me. She can only be honest with me. You see? You and Dana,” she waves her hand again. “It simply cannot be.”

“You don’t know her.”

“Eh,” Celine shrugs again. “I think it is you who don’t know her. It’s not your fault. A person cannot know someone who does not wish to be known.”

“I’m a detective,” Stella points out. “That is my job description.”

“Ah, out, but what do you _know_? You only know yourself.” Celine glances at her. “Wendy and I, we are the same.”

“No, you’re not.”

“But we are. You’ll see. When she comes, you will see.” Stella is quiet, watching the highway and cars pass by. It feels surreal, almost out of body, as if she isn’t truly there. She thinks about Wendy.

“I want you to take these things off me,” Stella demands, raising her wrists to Celine’s sightline.

“But the man at the shop told me they would be comfortable! Besides, what will you do with them off? Bite your nails? Non. You must let them grow out or they’ll never get strong again.”

“I don’t want them to be long. I like them short.”

“They make your fingers look so…” she searches for the word. “Stubby!”

“I can’t fuck Wendy with them long. I like them short,” Stella repeats. Celine smirks at her crudeness.

“You will not need to anymore. Perhaps you can try Dana. She always liked blondes.” They are silent as the implication washes over them, ringing in Stella’s ears like the resonating thrum of a gong strike. She says nothing. Celine’s lips twitch upward in the knowledge that she’s won the match.

Arm in arm, Dana and Wendy stroll through the museum galleries leisurely. Wendy’s gratitude is almost immeasurable for the distraction. In the apartment, her mind felt like it was short circuiting, constantly cycling between thinking about Stella, Celine, the agency, her relationship, her fidelity. It was suffocating. Even in winter, Paris was beautiful, and Dana made her feel safe.

Looking over a large Monet canvas, Wendy wondered how to explain Dana to Stella. So much had been left unsaid in the frenzy leading up to Wendy’s departure. She simply hadn’t know how to grapple with it all, how to vocalize her feelings. It felt impossible to describe now.

Dana had not made things easier in that respect. She defied explanations and categorization. Wendy loved her absolutely and unequivocally. And she slept with her. Often. Dana was the longest sexual relationship she’d ever had. But she didn’t love Dana like she loved Stella. She didn’t think she’d ever felt about anyone the way she felt about Stella. That was crux of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do we think about Stella and Celine? Or how about Wendy and Dana?   
Also, comments make me write faster. Just saying.


	23. Feeling Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get even more confusing between Wendy and Dana in Paris.

It’s too romantic. 

Paris is too romantic and Dana is too beautiful in the cool winter sunlight as they wind through back streets and alleys. When Dana leans in — only for a peck — Wendy cannot help but meet her mouth, graze her neck, and kiss her. It’s so perfectly familiar.

They kiss like lovers all the way back to their own arrondissement. Wendy relishes the feeling of Dana’s smooth, pale skin under her fingertips. Dana’s leather gloved hands hold her face as they kiss, holds her hand on the train. It makes her feel safe. She keeps kissing her. 

By the time they return to their apartment, Wendy is humming. She means to give Dana a chaste peck, a thanks for a beautiful day, for the gift of taking her mind off the impending clusterfuck, but Dana turns her head just so an Wendy feels lost all over again, pressing her tongue into Dana’s mouth and pulling her body flush against her own.

“You  really  like Impressionism,” Dana chuckles. 

“I want you,” Wendy declares. “Dana, I  missed you ,” she practically whines. “What did I ever do without you?”

“Wendy,” Dana moans. Wendy knows  that sound. It’s a particular sort of sound that Dana makes exclusively when she’s feeling in aroused. It’s audible desire and it makes Wendy’s pulse race. She pushes her hand under Dana’s t-shirt. “Wendy,” Dana gasps again, grabbing Wendy’s hip. Wendy tugs on her breast and Dana presses her chest further into Wendy’s had. “Touch me,” she pleads. Wendy shifts her stance, her thigh between Dana’s. She grinds herself wantonly against Wendy and Wendy realizes momentarily how selfish she’s been with Dana and how patient Dana has been with her. She pulls her hand from Dana’s shirt, replacing her hands on the pockets of Dana’s jeans and lifting her deftly. Dana gasps and giggles and puts her now bare hands to Wendy’s face, eyes glittering with mirth and affection. She kisses Wendy again.

Wendy holds her, allowing Dana to rub against her and kiss her until she whispers, “take me to bed, Wendy. I’ve been waiting for you to take me to bed.”

Wendy carries her into their small bedroom, tossing her down on the mussed bed and falling on top of her, coat, boots and all. Dana pushes her coat off, laughing like a schoolgirl. 

“I missed you, Wendy.” Wendy smiles down at her handsy, horny friend. Her best friend. Her heart swells at the sight of Dana, so pretty, so unencumbered. So happy. 

She lets herself be stripped by Dana’s deft hands, sneaking in her own efforts here and there — pulling the offending t-shirt over her head, popping open the button of her jeans. They end up in parallel states of undress, Dana in her bra and unbuttoned jeans and Wendy in her blouse, bra, and panties. Wendy slips her hand into Dana’s jeans and feels her own body heat as she feels Dana, pressing their bodies together. Her hand makes Dana squirm. 

“Please,” she gasps. Wendy doesn’t move and Dana squirms again, arching, trying to force Wendy’s fingers to touch her that little bit more. “Please, Wendy.” Wendy uses her other hand to tug on Dana’s jeans and Dana quickly shimmies them down her legs, kicking them off and opening her legs fully for Wendy. “Please,” she repeats. Wendy removes her hand, pulling off her own remains of clothing before shifting to straddle Dana’s thigh, pressing her body on top of Dana’s and kissing her for real.

“I love you,” Wendy whispers. “I love you, Dana.” Dana is biting her lip, aroused by the friction between their legs, and her eyes are watering. Wendy cannot tell if its from pleasure or love. 

“Wendy, I—“ Wendy cuts her off before she can say more, kissing her again, more thoroughly. She replaces her hand between them. Dana moans. There’s no more speech. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t resist. We’ll be returning to Celine and Stella very soon, I just love having fun with Wendy and Dana. I like that Dana helps Wendy tap into a different side of herself, even though it’s very messy and complicated. (Isn’t messy and complicated half the fun?)  
As always, comments make me write faster. (I said that last chapter and I wasn’t kidding. Less than 18 hours later, here you go!)


	24. So Tied Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations after sex and in the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me say upfront that it's been really wonderful for me to read the responses to the story so far. I know it's rough around the edges (ahem, typos, cough, cough), but the comments really provide the fuel that inspires me to keep writing. So, thank you! As always, more at the end...

They lay in a heap together as their breaths slow and quiet. Dana holds Wendy steady, listening to the pants dissipate into a rhythm of breathing that feels calm and relaxed against her skin.

“I love you, too,” Dana says. Wendy doesn’t answer, but Dana feels her breath shift. “I want you to be happy.”

“I want that, too,” Wendy whispers, her voice barely audible, face nuzzled into Dana’s sternum.

“I know you do,” Dana murmured, stroking Wendy’s hair softly against her.

“I don’t know what to do, Dana. I don’t know how to tell her. Or even what to tell her.” Wendy’s eyes stare blankly into the distance as the words spill from her mouth. To Wendy it feel like a minor flood.

“What if she doens’t love me?” Dana could feel Wendy’s eyelashes brush her skin and the soft slip of moisture on her skin as it fell from Wendy’s eyes.

“I’ll still be here. You call me. And I’ll be here,” Dana replies resolutely.

“Am I capable of love, Dana?” It’s a whisper, like a secret never meant to be told.

“You love me,” Dana affirms.

“Romantic love. Mulder love," Wendy protests.

“Have you ever loved someone that way before?”

“I thought I did. I thought... I thought I felt that for Celine. But now I don’t know. Maybe I’m not capable. Maybe this is all I’m made for.” Dana’s body suddenly feels like life raft.

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want?” Dana asks, her voice still gentle and kind as her eyes trace the lines on the ceiling. Wendy’s weight is comforting, her head anchoring Dana’s chest.

“I want to believe. I want to believe that I can.” It sounds like a plea, as if Wendy is articulating it for the court, almost as if she is trying to will her own belief into being.

“I think you already do, Wendy.” She combs her fingers through Wendy’s hair. “You just need to tell her.” Wendy shakes her head against Dana silently.

They stop for petrol is a no-name town and Stella finally convinces Celine to let them out of the car. Stella pumps the gas, awkwardly positioning her body between the car and the pump in effort to hide her bound wrists from view. Celine takes the opportunity to buy — at least Stella assumes she buys them — a roll of biscuits and coffee for the remainder of the drive.

“You have bought the premium, non?”

“No, I didn’t. I bought normal petrol.”

“Mais, non. It’s not good for your engine, you know.”

“It’s my car,” Stella reminds her tersely. Her wrists ache.

“I need to use the loo,” Stella informs her captor, who plucks open the plastic wrapper of her biscuits as if she hasn’t heard. “I need to use the loo,” Stella repeats.

“So go,” Celine gestures toward the small building.

“I can’t,” Stella grits out. Holding her wrists up between them. “You have to let my wrists go.”

“Non, non. There is nothing I must do. You know this.” Stella stares at her with dagger eyes. Celine simply shrugs.

“I’ll wait,” she says, opening the driver’s door and sliding herself in. Stella reluctantly cedes defeat.

“Give me my scarf so I can put it over my hands,” Stella asks. It’s less a request than a demand, but Celine obliges her, picking up the plaid checked scarf and passing it through the window to Stella, who grabs it and marches into the minimart.

The whole process takes a while and Celine is most of the way through her snack before Stella returns, grumpy. She considered running, but recognized almost immediately the tactical disadvantage it put her at.

“I’m hungry,” she tells Celine brusquely through the open passenger’s side window.

“You can have the last of my biscuits,” Celine replied. “Get in. We’re leaving now, cabbage.” Stella fights not to roll her eyes, but gets in. Celine jerks them out of the pump line and back onto the road. Stella takes the biscuits while Celine’s attention is occupied.

“Mon chou,” Celine starts in again, “you are so sour. You shouldn’t be! You are so beautiful, so sexy. Why are you so sour faced?”

“You kidnaped me,” Stella retorts.

“Ah, but I treat you well! You are not in the trunk — the _boot_, as you say. I give you food, I let you talk. I am a gentle kidnapper! I take care of you.”

“Why?”

“Why shouldn’t I? There is no need to send you back in pieces, cabbage. I do not need to make a salad out of you!”

“I’m not a cabbage.”

“British,” Celine sniffs. “So _literal_.” She shakes her head. “This is why you are no good for Wendy. She needs to be challenged! So, I give her a challenge. But not too hard,” Celine smirks conspiratorially. “I want my cherie to find me.”

“And then what?” Stella scoffs. “You’re going to ride of into the sunset with her?”

“Mais, oui, mon chou!” Celine exclaims. “I take her back to Budapest and we start all over!”

“The sun sets in the west,” Stella observes. Celine flicks her wrist in annoyance.

“So literal. We ride into the sunrise then. This is a better metaphor, non? The sun _rises_.” Celine pauses for a moment, thoughtful, and then seemingly pleased with herself. Stella chews on her biscuit. It tastes like cardboard.

“I do not dislike you, my cabbage,” Celine adds, her tone suddenly somber. “But you must know that love is worth killing for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are afoot and these four are a little bit of a mess... Where are Dana and Wendy going? Where are Stella and Celine *actually* going? Time will tell...


	25. Line of Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things reach a tipping point.

They arrive by supper time. Stella has never been happier to see the Atlantic Ocean. Her whole body feels stiff from being trapped and immobile for the better part of the day. Celine looks proud that they’ve made it at all.

She climbs the steps of the cottage behind Celine, wrists still bound together. She briefly considers kicking Celine down the stairs, but once again makes a mental point of tactical advantage and refrains.

The cottage is small, but well furnished and light despite nearly vanished sun.

“Get the bags,” Celine calls from the living room, shucking off her coat.

“Bags?” Stella queries, confused.

“In the _boot_,” she calls. “I left it unlocked for you.” She does not offer Stella the keys. Only Celine has a bag.

Stelladumps the bag in the entry way, making her way to the sofa to stretch. She can hear Celine in the other room, shuffling around.

She reappears a short time later, carrying a small photo in her hand.

“This is my favorite photo,” she says, practically shoving it into Stella’s face. It’s a slightly out of focus Polaroid of Wendy, young and brunette, lying in a mess of sheets, head propped on one hand and vainly trying to shield her face from the camera with the other. It’s all very tasteful, but it makes Stella’s stomach flip unpleasantly.

“Take off my cuffs,” Stella prompts. Celine’s hand collides with Stella’s cheek with a smart smack, causing Stella to yelp in surprise.

“Why must you be so rude?” she glowers, tucking the photo into her blouse pocket. “I’ve had enough of you.” Stella is proud that she does not cry. Her eyes don’t even water.

Wendy is in charge of dinner, but Dana agrees to help in spite of herself. She doesn’t cook well, but under Wendy’s tutelage, she is competent enough to help prepare the meal in under an hour. The listen to music while they work and it feels like home.

“I like it here,” Wendy remarks, pouring wine into table glasses. “Given the right circumstances, I think we could have been very happy here.”

“Weren’t you happy here?” Dana asks, inquisitive rather than accusatory.

“I thought I was. I did. I really did,” she says, bringing the glasses to their small table, already set. “It was a lie, Dana,” she confesses. “It was all a lie. I fell for the lie.”

“It happens to the best of us, Wendy. Sit down,” Dana gestures to the small seat across from her. Wendy smiles at her, somehow saddened Dana’s understanding.

“I don’t know if I know how to be happy without lying.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“No. With you… I don’t lie to you.”

“And Stella?”

“I couldn’t stop lying to her. I lied about everything.”

“Everything everything?”

“Nearly.”

“But you told her the truth.”

“I don’t know what truth is, Dana. There is no factual truth to tell. Truth is contingent. I _manufacture _truths to get truths. I manipulate truth.”

“You want the truth?” Dana smirks. Wendy remembers watching a rerun of _A Few Good Men_ on the sofa of Dana’s apartment and eating Chinese take out. They made fun of Mulder and truth and laughed until they cried, first from joy and then in catharsis.

“I’m afraid of Celine,” Wendy admits. It’s the first time she’s ever voiced the words out loud. If Dana is surprised, she doesn’t show it.

“Scared of what excatly?”

“That she’s trying to take something from me.” Wendy pauses. “You, for one.”

“Or Stella?” Dana fills in the rhetorical blank.

“Yes.” The word hangs in the air as the two look at one another across the table while Dana carefully assembles Wendy’s plan in her mind’s eye.

“Am I here to protect you or so you can protect me?” Dana asks, sipping her wine.

“Both,” Wendy answers honestly. “I need you here. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

“And Stella? What about her?”

“I’m gambling,” Wendy acknowledges seriously. “I don’t know if I’m right or not, but I bloody hope I am.” She allows her head to drop into her hands for a moment before pushing herself upright again and shuttering her uncertainty. “The food is getting cold.” Dana nods, mutely poking a piece of roast potato with her fork. Wendy cuts into the chicken breast, focusing on the flavors with each bite, focusing her mind on her senses. She imagines Stella digging into it. She admires Stella’s taste for carnal pleasures.

“Do you think I’m right?” She asks Dana, startled by the sudden question. She swallows her food,

“I don’t know,” Dana admits, watching Wendy’s face. It’s a questioning look. Wendy nods sharply,

“Then let’s find out.” Dana winds her fingers into Wendy’s.

“Alright then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one night! If that isn't a testament to the power of comments, I don't know what is. But really, what do you think?


	26. Leave it Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of abuse in this chapter, so if that is difficult for you, I'd suggest skipping this one. You can infer the important plot points from the next chapter.  
As always, more at the end.

Dana and Wendy are huddled together in their breakfast-nook-turned-intelligence-station when they hear the telltale skittering of a cell phone on vibrate. It’s either’s guess whose it is, both patting the table and counters near their seats. It’s on the counter next to the stove, one of Wendy’s. It’s not a call, but a photo. Several. And a caption: “tiéd az enyém.”

Stella’s empty bedroom. Her closet. Her car. Wendy’s stomach flips. She spells the caption out for Dana, letter by letter. “Yours is mine.” It’s Hungarian.

Wendy knows she should be afraid. She should be regretful. She should feel shame for failing to see this coming, but all she can do is shout “fuck!” into the tiny void of an apartment and slam the phone back to the counter.

Dana allows Wendy her anger and anguish.

“I was wrong,” Wendy chokes out, leaning over the sink. Dana rubs her back gently. “I killed her,” Wendy cries.

Stella and Celine spend their evening in separate rooms. Stella’s patience is frayed and she is almost happy when Celine switches out her restraints and shuts her into the smaller of the cottage bedrooms. It smells like cheap laundry detergent and wood cleaner. Stella finds herself staring at the ceiling tracing the wood grain on the rafters. She’s bored.

She has a cut on her lip from one of Celine’s rings. It stings a little, but Stella reasons that it cannot be too bad given the lack of blood drips. She plays with the fresh scab with her teeth to pass the time.

For her part, Celine makes herself at home, sprawling over the couch and tossingthe contents of her bag onto the bed in the master suite as she searches for Stella’s mobile. She finds it tucked neatly inside one of the interior pockets. She does not pick up the mess.

Instead, she scrolls through Stella’s camera roll. The most recent are hers, photos of the inside of Stella’s home and her car. Her personal favorites are a sequence of Stella slumped into the passenger’s seat of her own car, blissfully unconscious. The rest of the photos, however, are an exciting trove of unknowns.

Most of the photos are dull. Business cards, phone numbers, book titles, train schedules. It’s all terribly boring. Celine is delighted to find that these testaments to humdrum are offset by a much more exciting collection of photographs. They’re women. Celine finds the images tucked away in a “hidden album.” Upon closer inspection she realizes its not _women_, but a woman. And she looks nothing like Wendy.

Celine bursts into the bedroom like a tiny French Kool-aid man, startling Stella upright.

“You,” Celine points at her. “You are a little tramp, cabbage!” She laughs. “You have your own little cherie.”

Stella looks at her with a stony gaze.

“Who is she?” Celine prods, a wild glint of glee in her eye. Stella is silent, sliding back on the bed until her back can rest against the headboard. Celine begins flicking through the brief collection. She chuckles to herself,

“Mon chou, how could you be so stupid?” She taps on particularly unsubtle photo of a woman’s torso wrapped in lingerie and a peachy silk robe. “Was she a working woman?” Stella remains quiet.

Celine climbs onto the bed, sitting playfully on Stella’s knees and grasping her by the chin.

“You cannot be mute forever, my cabbage. You cannot act like a kicked dog, now. You,” she says with a rough jerk of her hand, “are just as _hideous_ and vulgar as everyone else.” Celine hops off the bed, releasing her grip on Stella’s face with a light smack on her cheek. “She will never forgive you,” she adds, pulling Stella by her wrists to the floor in one deft motion. Stella takes it, lying on the carpet, allowing herself to regain her breath. Celine surveys Stella’s wrinkled shirt and crumpled form smugly.

“You have no idea who Wendy is.” Stella’s voice is practically disembodied. It rises from her throat, still resting on beige carpet. Celine kicks her. It’s not bone crushing, but still manages to roll her onto her back.

“Your theories carry no weight here, my cabbage. Learn your place.” Stella catches Celine’s foot before the next kick can land, rolling herself away from the blow and scrambling to right herself against the bed.

“What do you want?” Stella asks, face utterly unmoved.

“Mon chou, if you do not know yet, I cannot help you.” Celine crouches next to Stella, smoothing her mussed hair back off her face. “Do not be so stubborn, my cabbage. You only make things difficult. There is no need to make a salad of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are picking up... What do you think? Comments are always appreciated!  
Also, I don't speak Hungarian, so I'm doing my best...


	27. Fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The woman in the photos...

Wendy arranges a car while Dana packs everything back into their suitcases, rapidly folding and rolling their clothing into compact bundles and putting them by the door. Wendy calls on Gordon and Morgan for clean up, but doesn’t say what or why. She leaves instructions with Gordon, who knows better than to ask.

Watching Wendy pace in the kitchen, Dana knows she’s watching Wendy unravel, if only momentarily. She doesn’t say anything, instead folding Wendy into her arms and stroking her back.

“She’s going to kill her,” Wendy cries, clinging to Dana, pressing her face into the curve of her neck.

“Oh, Wendy,” Dana sighs, holding her friend to her chest, enveloping her. “We’ll find her.” Wendy continues to cry, allowing herself to surrender to the fear that has settled into her gut. Dana draws light circles on her back with her palms.

“Come to bed,” she coaxes. “You need to rest.”

Dana pulls them both, step by step, into the bedroom, gently pushing Wendy onto the bed. She sits reluctantly, face red and nose runny. Dana brings her a cool washcloth for her face and says nothing.

“Do you want pajamas?” She asks quietly. Wendy shakes her head no and Dana nods. “Okay.” She climbs onto the bed and pulls Wendy down with her. Wendy puts up no resistance, glad to have Dana move for her.

Celine doesn’t believe in personal boundaries. This much has become clear to Stella. She’s sprawled in a chair, facing the bed and exploring Stella’s cell phone, keeping a lazy watch over Stella, curled up against the headboard. Her ribs are bruised, but not terribly. She watches Celine tiredly. She doesn’t trust Celine enough to go to sleep.

Celine’s fingers continue to tap against the glass, her nails occasionally clicking against the glass of the screen. Stella rests her head on her knees, numb.

“Her name is Rebecca,” she says. It’s out of the blue and Celine looks like the bed itself has come to life and spoken. “She’s a mathematician. The rest doesn’t matter,” Stella concludes.

“Non, non, cabbage,” Celine protests, standing at the foot of the bed with wide eyes and a loose grin. “Who else will you tell but me? You hide her!”

“No one,” Stella replies, turning her head away from Celine, unwilling to look at her anymore, cocooned in a dark grey sweater, eyes so bright and jubilant at Stella’s revelation. Perhaps she really did just want to tell someone. Even if that someone was Celine.

“Rebecca,” Celine rolls the name in her mouth. Testing out the sounds. “A mathematician, non? She sounds interesting. And beautiful,” Celine smirks, holding Stella’s cell phone captive in her palm. She unlocks it, tapping in the passcode she manually reset, and scrolls through the short album again. They’re not explicit, but they are racy. Stella’s guilt is nearly palpable, her own skin crawling with the knowledge that _she _had encouraged Rebecca to send her the photos. She had insisted it would make her feel better, feel something other than shame at her aging intellectual body. Rebecca was struggling with midlife teaching the young. _“They’re so beautiful and smart, Stel. Are we meant to feel like this? I feel so hideous and dumb.” _No, Stella had replied. She told Rebecca how beautiful she was. She told her not to measure her femininity against the crushing weight of millennial beauty standards and never to believe that she was anything less than divine. She’d used that word. A word that Wendy had so loved when she’d described _her _with it.

“You did not take these, did you, mon chou?” Celine’s voice interrupted Stella’s reverie. 

“No,” she answers bluntly, turning her head to glance at Celine. She’s studying the screen intently, turning the phone as if to see the composition more clearly. “She sent these to you, didn’t she?” Celine smirks, “just for you.” Stella is exhausted by her smugness. “How could you be so stupid?”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“But I do, my cabbage. You lied. I am simply revealing the truth about you. You and your sensual _Rebecca_.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think Wendy will disagree. You lied.”

“She lied!” Stella snapped. “She lied to me about everything. And now I’m here, with you. That’s punishment enough.”

“Wah, should I play you a small violin, cabbage? You are the one that put your nose where it does not belong. And _betrayed _Wendy.” Celine tuts her tongue dramatically. “Betrayer.” Her smile is self-righteous and self-satisfied.

“I haven’t touched Rebecca.”

“It does not matter,” Celine replied.

Wendy is sleeping when the photo comes through. Dana feels it vibrate in her chest, tucked against her breast. The text comes through first, “áruló,” followed by the first photo, and then a second and third. They’re a woman, that much is very clear. It doesn’t look like Stella. The woman is paler, with short chestnut hair that barely makes into the frame of the photos, which focus on her body and occasionally her lips. She looks slimmer than Stella, too. Her neck is thin and pronounced. Her breasts look smaller, too. She’s attractive though. For a moment, Dana wonders if the woman is Celine, but knows well enough from listening to Wendy that Celine is nearly covered in freckles and petite in every sense.

She checks the word from the web browser on Wendy’s phone. It comes back as Hungarian. Betrayer. It suddenly clicks. _Oh._ Sexy selfies. Practically nude, by the look of the last one. Dana doesn’t look too hard.

A second text arrives with a soft ding. “Rebecca.” And another photo, a screenshot. Text messages between Stella and “R.H.” beneath a cut-off photo that ends with an expanse of pale skin. _Rebecca. _Words exchanged like “sensuous” and “enthralling” and a final sentence from nearly falling out of the screenshot. _“You’re so erotic.” _Dana clicks the screen off, suddenly afraid to wake Wendy with the bomb in her message thread. _Oh. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. How was it?


	28. Ghosts Under Rocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's day two in St. Ives...

Celine falls asleep first lying on Stella’s bed after having dozed off shortly after cuffing Stella’s ankles together with a set that seemed to match the set of cuffs on her wrist. In a notion scenario, Stella would have found humor in the knowledge that Celine appeared to have done her kidnap shopping at a sex shop, but it eluded her at that moment. She fought the urge to kick Celine in the gut as she slept lazily in her soft sweater and corduroy trousers. Instead, she rolled over to her side, turning her head away from Celine, searching the sky for stars. There were none to see.

She thought about Rebecca, and how lovely she had in those photos and how happy she had been to be the subject of Stella’s interests. How understood she had felt by Rebecca’s anxieties about her body. How liberated she felt when Rebecca had sent the photos, blushing and happy. How wonderful it had felt to be desired and admired as a whole person in those moments. It had fallen on the heels of Wendy — then Cassandra’s standup in the bar. The texts. _Stel, I need to ask you something. _And the honesty. She idly wondered if Wendy was capable of true honesty. Was she? Stella falls asleep wondering.

She is awoken in the morning to Celine tapping her cheek.

“Are you awake?”

“I am now, Frère Jacques,” she gripes, stretching in the restraints. Her body is sore and stiff. Celine is practically on top of her. “What is it?”

“I want breakfast.”

“Then eat something” she mutters, rolling away from Celine.

“I can’t leave you here _alone_,” Celine whines.

“Yes, you can. I’m tired.” Celine prods Stella’s ribs.

“Get up. We’re going to breakfast.”

“I need to wash.” Celine let out a juvenile huff in response, sliding off Stella and into a heap of blankets on the bed. 

“I suppose.” Celine gestured toward the bathroom. “Go on.” Stella held her wrists up definitely.

“You need to let me out. I cannot bathe in these and I certainly can’t go out looking like a spit-roasted pig.”

“So dramatic,” Celine murmured snidely, reaching into her sweater for a thin gold necklace chain with a set of small keys hanging like charms at the center. “If you do anything stupid, my cabbage, I will hurt you. Badly. Do you understand?” Stella stared at her, mouth unmoving. Celine’s hand landed loudly against her face. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Stella growled, holding her wrists out defiantly. Celine turned her key to the set at Stella’s ankles.

“5 minutes,” Celine declared. “Go.”

Stella abided by Celine’s demand, emerging from the bathroom in a towel five minutes later.

“Will you be our own Lady Godiva, cabbage? You want to ride nude through the town?”

“I have no clothes. I can’t wear those any more,” she said gesturing the heap on the floor. “They smell.”

Celine shrugged. “Pas de problème. I have Wendy’s clothes. You will fit.”

“Here?” Stella inquired, incredulous.

“Of course,” Celine replied, tugging open a wardrobe next to the bed. In it hung a line of dress clothes, long nightgowns. A robe on the hook inside the door. She pulled open a drawer in the stand near Stella. Full of thick sweaters and denim. Stella opened the door of a second wardrobe in front of her. Casual skirts, dresses. A section of outerwear. Shoes lined the bottom. Stella’s eyes caught on the square toed boots and pumps, then the stitching on the skirts.

“When are these from?” She asked softly, running her hands over a brown swede skirt.

Celine pursed her lips in thought. “1991. Yes, I think so. 1991.” Stella looked at her over her shoulder, brow furrowed in thought.

“You kept these?”

“Mais oui, mon chou. I keep them for her. She might want them.”

“It’s nearly 30 years old,” Stella replied in disbelief at Celine’s insistence at the ordinariness of it all.

“She may want it when she comes back. I could not just _throw it away_. These are her things!” Celine shook her head and waved Stella off as an adult would a child — as if Stella simply couldn’t understand the common sense of it. “She will be back soon. And she will be glad I keep her things,” Celine adds, sitting down on the bed. “You wear what you want.”

“I want to dress in peace.”

“I cannot trust you, _Stella._ I already gave you one of these show of good faith. My good faith only stretches so far.” Celine pulls a small taser from her sweater, holding it casually in her lap. “Remember what I said, my cabbage.”

Stella turned back to the open wardrobe, pulling the swede skirt from its hanger, and retrieving a sweater from the drawers. With some digging she retrieved underthings and her bra from the heap on the bathroom floor. Nudity did not bother Stella, and when she dropped the towel to dress, she did so in absolute defiance of Celine and the power she attempted to lord over her.

It fits. It all fits, although the skirt hangs a bit big on her waist. She doesn’t mind it. Though somewhat dated, she looks fine. She even feels fine. Until the tell-tale click of the cuff and the feeling of plush fabric and metal closes around her wrist. She whips around, startled, but not before Celine has an opportunity to close the second loop around the other wrist, locking her in again. She wants to scream.

“Do not be angry with me, mon chou,” Celine smirks. “I’m sure you’ll get used to it. I’m sure this isn’t your first time in a pair of restraints.” Stella wishes she could storm out.

Instead, she rides into town with Celine, who chatters on with seemingly endless abandon. Stella thinks about Wendy. And Rebecca. And hopes against hope that Celine hasn’t sent them to Wendy. Not yet. Not without explanation. Not without allowed Stella to tell Wendy that she loves her.

Wendy wakes curled around Dana, whose face is nestled into her neck. She can feel Dana’s breathes, regular and even. She leans into it, if only for a moment. But she knows better than to stay still for too long. She pushes herself up and awake, despite the lingering darkness outside and Dana’s calm sleeping form that seems to call her back to bed. She pads into the kitchen, pulling a few bottles of the water from the fridge for the drive to the airport.

Dana joins her momentarily, hair wild from sleep and mouth stretched in a yawn.

“Is everything booked?” She asks.

“Yes,” Wendy confirms, scrolling through a list of notifications on her cell phone. Emails from Gordon and the field office arranging and confirming transport, a notification about the weather.

“Did she send more?” Wendy asks, turning her head to Dana. Dana’s hands hands are shoved into the pockets of her pajamas.

“It wasn’t helpful, Wendy.” A moment of silence hangs as Wendy searches Dana’s eyes, searching for what exactly that means and whether she truly wants to know at this moment at 5:00am in Paris.

“What was it?”

“A woman,” Dana answers vaguely, inspecting the floor at her feet.

“Another hostage?”

“No.”

“A woman?” She repeats. “Show me.”

“Wendy, I don’t think it’s worth it.”

“This is my mission.” Wendy’s voice chills. It feels like the life is sucked out of the room. “I will decide what is worth it to know or not. Give me the phone.”

“Damn it, Wendy,” Dana snaps. “Do not treat me like I am your supporting agent. I am not your subordinate.” Wendy’s eyes flash in anger, but the spark fades as quickly as it erupted. Dana’s face relaxes slightly. “She’s playing with your head. Do not let her get in your head.”

“Dana,” Wendy answers. “You can’t protect me from her. Either of them.”

"Someone at least ought to try," Dana answers tenderly. Wendy reaches for her reflexively, stroking her cheek softly. 

"I love you, Dana."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is keeping secrets now...  
What do you think? I had a little fun Havisham-ing Celine a little. Thoughts always appreciated. Feedback always inspires me, so leave some inspiration if you feel like it.


	29. Arsonist's Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile in London...

Dana holds Wendy’s hand nearly the whole way back to London. In the car, in the terminal, on the plane, always holding Wendy’s hand in hers. Wendy is grateful for it. It’s a grounding force that helps her stay sane through the seemingly endless hours of waiting to just _leave_. Even in the taxi line, she finds herself still anxiously waiting, toe tapping, and reaching for Dana’s out-stretched hand.

The house feels like a time capsule, each room triggering a thought or association with Stella and the precious but few hours she had spent there with Wendy, helping her. She thinks about Stella, slipping her pajamas into her suitcase as they packed. She wonders what Stella must have been thinking — what she was trying to say — when she tucked them in amongst Wendy’s clothes and toiletries. Wendy feels her eyes water. She never even took them out of the suitcase.

“I was horrible to her,” she whimpers, standing in the doorframe of her bedroom. Dana sets down their bags in the hall.

“I’m sure you weren’t.”

“I was,” Wendy insists. “I just was. I never told her how I felt. I never even told her I _liked _her.”

“She knew you liked her.” Wendy shakes her head, allowing Dana to steer them into the bedroom. “You’ll tell her, Wendy. We will find her.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” Wendy confesses, searching Dana’s eyes. “I’m afraid we’re going to find her. And it will be too late.” Dana pulls Wendy into a tight hug. Wendy tucks herself into Dana’s embrace. It feels like a tiny forcefield, as though somehow she is safe within the small loop of her friend’s arms. The silence washes through the room and Wendy breathes deeply, forcing herself to compartmentalize Celine and Stella into tactical categories. There’s a stab in her heart when she mentally applies the word “hostage” for the first time.

“I need a shower,” she announces dully as the extricates herself from Dana.

“Do you want me to join?” Dana asks. Wendy nods shallowly.

Dana is quick to disrobe, but Wendy takes her time. She feels as though she’s stepping into her own alias, shedding her old skin.

She steps into the behind Dana, hands reaching for her unconsciously. Dana shifts forward, allowing her waist to settle into the space Wendy’s have created.

“Hi,” she says, brushing an errant lock of hair behind Wendy’s ear.

“Hi,” Wendy answers. “Are you okay?” Dana smiles coquettishly.

“I am. But I should be asking you that.” Wendy’s hair sticks to her face.

“I will be. I’ll always be in your infantry.” Wendy kisses her, unable to vocalize the words of gratitude she so deeply feels. Dana’s lips are warm and wet and her body slippery. They press together in the shower under the spray and Wendy’s hand slips between them. Dana’s knees go weak, leaning into Wendy as she works between them adroitly. Dana’s pants and moans are dampened by the shower noise, but funnel into Wendy’s ears as though fed by wire. Her mouth finds a home running over the tendons of Dana’s neck. She feels Dana’s gasps against her lips, the vibrations of her voice dancing against her mouth. It feeds the yearning inside her, the absolute desperation for something familiar to stabilize her world that has spun so dramatically out of control. It’s a triumph to feel Dana cum on fingers and she feels as if one sliver of the world is righted as she Dana’s breath steadies. Wendy kisses her temple. “You’re better than I deserve,” she whispers. Dana’s head shakes on her shoulder.

The water is lukewarm by the time they’re done. Wendy refuses Dana’s offer of reciprocation. “It can wait,” she says. Dana laces her fingers into Wendy’s in quiet understanding.

“Tonight then,” she offers. Wendy nods, squeezing Dana’s hand before disappearing into the bedroom in search of clean towels.

They eat in quiet. Wendy chews her thoughts along with her food.

“I was never scared of Celine. I don’t think I knew to be scared of her. She seemed so irreverent and carefree. Innocuous.” Wendy stabs at the last piece of broccoli on her fork. “I _knew _better. But I didn’t.”

“Judgement is imperfect. As are we.”

“One of us is going to get her killed, Dana. I’m not sure yet if it will be her or I.”

“The profile you sent doesn’t suggest a proclivity to murder.”

“I built the profile. I could have missed something. Just because she hasn’t doesn’t mean she won’t.” Wendy chews.

“Escalating behavior?” Dana poses, scooping up another bite of takeaway rice.

“No. Not that.” Wendy pauses. “She’s a tyrant. Stella is too strong-willed for her.”

“Stella knows how to read people. She’ll know.”

“But she won’t. There is no learning curve. _One _wrong move, Dana. It only takes one.” Wendy puts down her fork.

“Then help me understand her.”

“That’s just it. I don’t understand her myself anymore.” Wendy rests her head on her open hands, ducking into a kind of brace, wracking her brain. Dana pulls Wendy’s cell phone from the pocket of her jeans.

“The letters,” Wendy murmurs. Her eyes catch Dana’s and its as if lightning struck. “Come here,” she says, tugging Dana by the arm toward her study and the wall safe. Holding the bundle in her hands, Dana is surprised at its weight.

“How many are there?”

“I don’t know.,” she replies, mentally pausing to guess. “Maybe 80.”

“80?”Dana’s eyebrow quirks in surprise.

“They’re short,” Wendy acknowledges. “I’m going to Stella’s apartment.”

“I’ll come with you,” Dana replies, grasping the bundle of letters, still bound together in her hands. “I’ll read on the way.”

It’s a rush to the apartment. Wendy drives her Jaguar like a woman possessed. Dana reads as best she can, one hand resting Wendy’s thigh for most of the drive. Wendy is grateful and kisses Dana deeply when they arrive, grounding herself to Dana’s rational, stable form. “I just need to look,” she tells Dana resolutely as she ducks out, jogging toward the door.

Dana sinks into the seat as she goes, reading through the tangle of emotions knotted in the inky scratchings. Wendy’s phone rests against her hip. She starts when it vibrates. A screenshot. No caption. Familiar initials mark the top of the first, the succession of texts culminating with Rebecca’s proposition, _“Masturbate with me, Stel.” _Dana’s heart sinks.

If Wendy is honest, she doesn’t believe the answers are in the letters. She scans the house, room by room. Everything looks and smells just as she remembers and Wendy momentarily wishes she could just lie in it. She doesn’t, though. Her body thrums with adrenaline. There’s nothing worth finding except the chess set, so new it still smells like varnish, set up in corner of Stella’s study. It makes Wendy’s chest ache. She nearly misses the thin folded letter at the center, assuming it to be receipt.

Dana is still in the car when she spots Wendy sprinting to the car, paper in hand. “St. Ives,” she says, shoving the paper into Dana’s hand as she throws herself into the car and speeds the car down the drive. Dana reads it quickly at first, and then more slowly as Wendy sends them both hurdling down the road toward the highway. Dana squeezes her thigh as she reads.

_On my way to London, I saw a woman with seven lovers. Each lover had seven parcels, each parcel had seven secrets, each secret had seven lies, and each lie had seven truths. Lovers, parcels, secrets, and lies, how many were going to St. Ives?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I have writer's block. That was really hard to write and I still don't know if it "feels right." Seeking inspiration.  
Also, someone really needs to tell me how they feel about Rebecca.


	30. Would That I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discovery and foreshadow.

Celine leaves Stella in the car like a pet dog. Stella picks at her cuticles to pass the time. St. Ives is overcast and cold. Her skin feels dry and her hair is unruly. She fights the urge to sink into the seat of her own car, fights the urge to give in to how tired she is — how tired she is of this.

Celine tosses her a Danish in a paper bag from the driver’s side as she climbs in. It’s a little squished, but it’s enough, at least for now. She eats while Celine watches her with vague disinterest.

“You English do not know how to eat.” Stella continues to eat, nonplussed. “It’s a shame.” Celine starts the car, but doesn’t put it in gear. “Let’s go for a drive.” Stella wants to scream, but shoves the remainder of the Danish into her mouth instead.

Celine’s idea of a drive terminates at Watch Croft, an expanse of open space that Stella can only describe as deeply unimpressive. The wind is too strong and too cold, but Celine prods her out anyway.

“It is a beautiful place, non?”

“No,” Stella retorts.

“Non?” Celine ponders. “I think it is beautiful.” Pointing to a large upright stone, she adds, “This is a _cairn_. It is a monument. Recognition of death, you know.”

Stella looks at it, eyes tracing the unremarkable form.

“Human beings need to make sense of death,” Stella contributes with disinterest.

“My little anthropologist.” Stella rolls her eyes, looking down the hillside to the sea.

“Are you afraid to die?” Celine asks curiously.

“No,” Stella answers truthfully.

“Not even now, mon chou? It would be very normal.”

“No.”

“So strange.”

“There is no point to fearing the inevitable,” Stella replies, eyes still cast to the horizon.

“You are a selfish woman.”

Stella cannot help but turn, utterly incredulous. “I? You do nothing but _take._ All for yourself.”

“You take, my cabbage.”

“What?”

“You take from everyone. For yourself. You take from Wendy, non? From Rebecca? You take her crisis for yourself.”

“Rebecca needed me. I was her friend. I helped her see herself as she is. I did not _take _anything she wasn’t willing to give.”

Celine snickers. “Mais oui, a _friend_. Like Dana, I am sure.”

“Dana -- yes. She is. A friend.”

“Like Rebecca is yours.”

Dana falls asleep in the car, head tilted toward Wendy and resting on her shoulder. Wendy drives in silence until the early morning catches up with her. She reluctantly pulls off the road in Burnham on Sea, booking them into the first decent looking hotel she sees. Dana is stretching and rolling out her neck by the time she returns to the car.

“Reminds me of the FBI,” she grins. Wendy shudders to think just how many hours Dana has spent in the passenger’s seat of a sedan with Mulder. She hopes her own is more comfortable. Dana can sense Wendy’s apprehension as she pulls their bags out of the boot.

“You look tired,” Dana murmurs, rubbing Wendy’s arm over her sweater sleeve.

“I am tired,” Wendy confesses. “Let’s go inside.”

Dana slips the suitcases from Wendy’s hands and nods inside. “I’ll get them.”

Their room is a “suite” with a large bed in the center and a kind of anteroom. Dana sets their cases by the closet as Wendy pulls off her boots. She looks small in her bare feet, roll neck curving up toward her jaw. Dana kicks off her own shoes and lines them against the wall.

Something inside Wendy break in that moment. It’s as if her whole self is cleaving in two. She feels detached from her own body as she walks toward Dana, part of her desperate to reach out and touch her and the other wishing she could just vanish into the carpet.

Dana’s hands slip into Wendy’s reflexively.

“I know you don’t want to tell me,” Wendy starts. “You don’t need to protect me, Dana.” Dana’s eyes soften.

“I know.” Dana pulls the phone from her pocket, handing it to Wendy and averting her gaze as Wendy begins to read. The ambient sound of the room is deafening as she does. She doesn’t know what to say. Words won’t come. And so she simply hands the phone back to Dana, whose eyes look so concerned. Dana, whose love is so pure and unconditional, whose loyalty is so unwavering. Love. Had Stella loved her? Had Stella ever loved her? Or was she another Rebecca? The question made her stomach knot with the understanding that she never knew.

She ran a hand through Dana’s hair, gripping it lightly at the base of her neck and drawing her head back into a gentle arc. Her lips find Dana’s pulse gently, her mouth warm against the column of her throat as one hand rests on her hip, unhurried.

“Are you sure?” Dana whispers into the vacuum of the room.

“Yes,” Wendy murmurs, tongue finding Dana’s ear. “Love me, Dana.” It breaks her heart and Dana cannot help but kiss her in reply, her mouth soft and gentle as she coaxes Wendy’s lips apart. She can feel Wendy loosen in her arms, as though surrendering.

The find their way to the bed, still clothed. Wendy’s legs make a shallow valley for Dana as they kiss, Dana’s weight pressing Wendy into the duvet. She’s cupping Wendy’s cheek when she feels them first. It’s unmistakable against her fingers tips. The tears run slowly, making tracks on Wendy’s face as they leak from her eyes.

“Do you want to stop?” Dana asks, resting her forehead against Wendy’s chin.

“No,” she rasps. Dana can feel her swallow beneath her.

“You loved her.”

“I guess I did,” Wendy whispers. Her voice sounds hollow. “I wasn’t enough.”

“Maybe no one is.” Dana can feel Wendy move against her, nodding. The movement is soft, but intentional. Wendy’s arms hold her tighter.

“Would that I could have been.” Dana kisses her softly, chastely. _I know. _“Someday, it won’t matter,” she murmurs. “Someday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am having trouble finding inspiration. I'm thinking of cutting the story here. For me, writing requires an audience and I think this writing may have lost its audience and I'm hitting a bit of a wall myself...


	31. River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella catches Celine's drift and Wendy lets herself go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a moment of inspiration this morning and decided to run with it. Here's 31.

Celine’s words gnaw at Stella as they drive further down the coast. The knowing, condescending tone in Celine’s voice echoed in her head. What did that mean? Dana _was _Wendy’s friend. And she was Rebecca’s friend, though their relationship had always been twinged with mutual lust and desire. It was something they had always been open about in their long-distance friendship. They were equal parts friends and lovers. They met needs as the needed to be filled — voids of affection and care that were left by others.

Stella sensed the same was not true of Dana and Wendy. Stella would never have called Rebecca in a time of true need as Wendy had called Dana. They didn’t fill in voids.

Stella picked at her cuticles in silence as Celine continued to talk at her, imagining Dana and Wendy in Paris, Dana’s red hair and Wendy’s … she had never gotten to see Wendy’s dark hair, save the photo Celine had shoved in her face. She imagined them walking the boulevards together, Dana’s marching walk and Wendy’s sure-footed glide. The must have looked like lovers. Like partners. Something caught in Stella’s throat. _Like partners._ Rebecca wasn’t that at all. 

With some coaxing, Wendy is convinced to go to the pub down the street. The slide into a booth and Dana orders a beer almost immediately. Wendy orders a gin and tonic and nurses it as Dana negotiates their food selection.

“You can’t be angry with her.” Dana’s voice reaches her ears abruptly and she realizes she must have been zoning out, staring at the dart board on the opposite wall.

“I’m not,” she answers honestly.

“You and I sleep together,” Dana points out.

“It’s different,” Wendy sighs. “You just don’t know her.”

“Then help me.”

Wendy shifts in her seat, leaning forward on her elbows in resignation.

“I wanted more than she could give. I should have known. I _did _know. Our first tiff, it was because I wanted something she didn’t want. It’s my fault. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have pretended we were on the same page.”

“She just wanted sex?”

“Yes.”

A tall man with a gaunt face takes their order and disappears into the kitchen. Wendy fidgets with her ponytail, waiting for Dana’s next question, next statement of fact. It doesn’t come. When she looks up at Dana, all she sees are inquisitive blue eyes and a soft frown.

“I’ll be okay,” she assures Dana, hand sliding across the table. “We will find her and I will be okay.” Her own voice surprises her in its resoluteness. She will be. She will be okay.

“Alright,” Dana acquiesces.

They don’t talk about Stella for the rest of the meal. Dana distracts them with stories from the X-files and the high strangeness of it all. Wendy tells her about a few of her own misadventures in fieldwork, including one incident in Venice in which she had been forced to dive into a canal. Dana laughs at the thought of Wendy dragging herself up a set of sunken stairs looking like a drowned rodent. Wendy recalls stealing dry clothes off a laundry line and combing her hair with her fingers. She remembers a man she’d met that night in those stranger’s clothes, and how wonderful it had felt to have sex with him with the windows open in the warm summer air. She remembers how it felt and remembers how much she’d missed those days of youth — of being indestructible, or at least thinking she was. _Fuck it. _Fuck Stella, fuck heartbreak. Fuck Celine. Fuck it all.

“Let’s go,” she suggests. Dana’s eyebrows quirk in amusement.

“That was a mood shift.”

“Dana.” It’s so insistent it’s nearly a whine. They leave notes on the table to cover the table and shuffle out of the pub. Wendy kisses her next to the fire door in the alley behind the pub. Her mouth is eager and her hands roam across Dana’s torso. She’s heated and excited. Pleasure. That’s all she wants to feel.

Dana nestles them in the shadow of a slightly inset doorway and slips her hand between Wendy’s trouser-clad legs. Wendy gasps, throwing her head back.

“Yes,” she moans. Dana wraps her arm around her and pins her hip to the building wall, rubbing her hand against Wendy in unpredictable motions that make her squirm and whimper. She plays with her own breast under her coat and it feels like utter transcendence to be trapped against the wall with Dana’s hands and mouth seemingly everywhere on her. She cums with moan and pant, relaxing against the wall as her mind and body piece themselves back together. Dana’s eyes glint with winsome reverie and Wendy cannot help but smile back.

“Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't quite know what the future holds for this story. I love these characters. I'm just a bit of a needy writer, I think.


	32. Just A Little Bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a game of catch-up. And chess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while, I know. Ambivalence is a hard thing to write through. More at the end.

St. Ives at eight in the morning during winter is a dismal place, Dana decides. The clouds hang low over the town and seem to meld into the sea and the streets are nearly empty except the grocer’s, the bank, and the pharmacy. Dana doesn’t look too long, concentrating on the wheel and the navigation directing her in short, clipped bursts. Wendy scan’s the sidewalks. Her team has already tracked Stella’s BMW down the coast with traffic cameras, but Wendy cannot help but anticipate an unexpected twist. There’s nothing to see, though.

The house itself is also deeply unexceptional. A cottage set at the end of a cul-de-sac on one of taller hills, it looks like an aging vacation home. Wendy charges toward the door with a lock picking set and leather gloves Dana didn’t know she kept in the glove box, but Dana hangs back, surveying the house in all its plainness. She wonders if Celine picked it for this, or if it was simply a convenient place for an inconvenient plan.

Dana joins Wendy inside, once the house is cleared, they find Stella’s clothes in a heap in the bathroom off the guess bedroom, which looks thoroughly mussed. Dana stands over a human-sized imprint on the carpet, eyes scanning the fibers turned this way and that. She fights the urge to voice her observation aloud that things don’t look good.

Wendy’s attention is fixed elsewhere, staring into one of the room’s two wardrobes until she simply can’t bear to look anymore, turning toward the bed, toward Dana, and finally back into the bathroom to wretch over the toilet. Dana holds her hair back for her and lets her finish spitting before asking the obvious question.

“They’re my clothes,” Wendy says, splashing her face in the sink. “From Paris. I remember. She saved them.” It comes out so matter of fact, Dana can almost believe that it doesn’t bother her.

Wendy steps back into the room with purpose, pulling open the other wardrobe, the bedside tables, and the low chest of drawers under the mirror. It’s all there, folded and clean. She wonders who it was that Celine tricked into doing this. Did they know she was a criminal? Did they know she was a murderer? Or had they simply thought she was moving in with a wife, a girlfriend, a friend?

“She got inside my head.” Wendy murmurs, pulling out one of the sweaters, a chunky magenta thing with more color than value. The low quality scratch of the fibers against her skin reminds her of winters bicycling across Paris with the collar pulled up to her chin and the naiveté of thinking she was in love. She shucks her coat off on the bed and pulls it on over her long-sleeved tee.

“Lets go.” Wendy announces, looking back at Dana, still standing just outside the bathroom door.

“Grab me one,” Dana tells her. Wendy laughs at that. The sound is almost hollow.

“We can come back.”

“No, just grab one for me and let’s get out of here. It gives me the creeps.” Wendy laughs again and tugs a cream and burgundy sweater from the top of the stack.

Dana puts it on in the car, along with a hat she pulled from the go-bag in the boot of the car. Wendy has to admitted — although begrudgingly — that she does look cute. They peel out of the gravel drive with gusto as Dana feeds last-known coordinates into Wendy’s car navigation.

“The newer cars are equipped with real-time tracking navigation,” Wendy tells her off-handedly as she turns quickly back onto the arterial.

“This isn’t a newer car?” Dana asks sarcastically, glancing pointedly at the luxurious interior surrounding them.

“This is a personal car,” Wendy smirks. “I have to have something in life to enjoy,” she adds as she accelerates. Dana lets herself smile back as silence settles over the car.

Having allowed the moment to fade, Wendy returns to herself, focus renewed.

“When we get to Zennor, I want you to switch with me,” she tells Dana. “I need to put on my side arm.”

Stella is bored. Well and truly bored. Celine’s near constant monologue has grated Stella’s last nerve. If it weren’t for the car’s safety features, she muses that she might have thrown herself from the car already.

“What’s the point?” She asks finally, cutting Celine off in the midst of another observation about the shortcomings of the English people.

“Excusez moi?”

“What is the point?” Stella repeats, more quietly, the question heavy in the air. “Are you going to kill me? Lure Wendy here, break her heart and then scoop up the pieces back to Budapest or whatever other former Eastern-bloc you take a liking to?” Celine’s mouth twists into a conceited smirk.

“My, my cabbage, you do think very much of yourself, non? _Break her heart_. You think you can break her heart?”

“Don’t you?” Stella replied pointedly. “Or were you just impatient?”

“You are not asking the right questions, cabbage,” Celine replies casually. “You have not played chess, have you?” Stella’s face is stony and cold. “It is a game of players. You must only know how to play each piece. A rook, it can only slide back and forth. So you must treat it as such. Simply because it cannot hook like a knight, it does not mean it is not good. Rooks and knights all have places on the board. Even pawns,” Celine gloats, “they have their place.”

“Just because you speak like a sphinx doesn’t make you powerful.”

“Nor you. So combative, my cabbage. It is so unnecessary.” Stella rolls her eyes and stares out the window as countryside passes.

“Let’s not play coy,” Stella insists.

“No,” Celine agrees, punching the gas. “My cabbage, we will not waste our time. And you rest easy, when we are through, you will have no need for riddles or power. This is the way it must be. It is the great service of a pawn to lost for queen.”

“You are not the queen in this game.”

“Mais non! My cabbage, each board has two.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a challenge for me. As I've said before, I'm a needy writer and that's true both of my attitude toward myself and readers. If you like it, please let me know. And if not, let me know that, too. It's hard to write in a vacuum. That said, I really truly appreciate the nice comments I've gotten throughout this endeavor. It's those comments that make me keep going.


	33. Dirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Near meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took longer than usual. I re-wrote it several times, but I think maybe it was worth the wait? I'll let you tell me.

Wendy believes in intuition. It’s a byproduct of years in the field, missions executed. She knows when to trust her gut and when to make the improbable call. She knows enough to know better than to believe in only her conscious mind.

When she sees a silver BMW parked off the road, something inside her knots and she finds herself commanding Dana to stop the fucking car and Dana does. The A30 is small through Sennen and it’s only by this grace that they don’t end up in a pileup. Dana turns them around to park behind an inn. Wendy is out of the car first, pulling at the straps of the harness contraption holding her sidearm and clips under her ribs. _What are you going to do, shoot her? _She tamps down the uncertain voice in the back of her head.

Adjusting the straps of her holster, Dana is able to see her in control, powerful, for the first time since leaving London. There’s a focus and precision to the movements that feel practiced and refined. She recognizes it as the action of armoring up, but there’s something else there that she missed — hasn’t seen since many years ago. Dana brushes a few windswept strands of dark hair from Wendy’s face as she composes herself. Wendy smiles. Confident. Bright blue green eyes. _She has this. _Dana kisses her, lips warm and soft against her own slightly chapped ones.

“I’m behind you the whole way,” she whispers. “Let’s go.” Wendy’s hand snakes into Dana’s, squeezing it in the narrow gap between their bodies. Wendy nods and they’re off.

Dana has her own intuition. It’s not for things out of place, or scenarios. It’s a human intuition. Simpler descriptions might call it trust, but it’s more than simply _trusting _someone. It’s faith. Her belief in Wendy’s instincts is unwavering and her commitment to behind her the whole way is concrete.

She keeps an eye out as Wendy makes her way toward the car, pulling on a set of leather gloves Dana didn’t know she kept in the glove box. She jimmies the handle of the door before checking the plate. It matches to the letter. Dana leans on the hood.   
“It’s cold.”

“Let’s go in,” Wendy said, jerking her shoulder toward the doorway of another small inn and pub across the street. Their shoes crunch over the scattered gravel on the side of the roadway. “Don’t speak unless you must,” Wendy adds, casting a glance back at Dana, who nods in understanding. Wendy is grateful not to have to explain.

The pub itself is small and filled with wood panelling that makes the whole thing feel like a cave. Dana dislikes it, but keeps her thoughts to herself, if only for Wendy’s sake. She is nearly relieved not to see Celine or Stella. Wendy must have noticed the absence as well, wasting no time in approaching the slightly overweight man with an ear piercing was pouring one from the taps behind the bar. She peppers him with questions and he is fumbling and apologetic, but his answers are enough and helpful in their own way. Wendy nods back to the door and Dana marches them outside, turning as her eyes adjust to the new scene in front of them.

Wendy nearly screams when she sees the cold BMW, now absent from the street entirely.

The idea of a lands’ end was one Stella had little interest in, even as a child. There were so many much more pressing things to think about. However, when the waitress at the pub had told them the only things worth seeing near Sennen was Land’s End and Maen Castle, she had a sinking suspicion that this was in face Celine’s grand finale. She couldn’t imagine Celine — ever the rhetorical sphinx — would ever give up such a prime metaphoric opportunity. 

Of everything Celine has muttered and huffed, Stella is struck most by the words she chooses as they turn back away from Sennen and toward the coast.

“It is not your fault, mon chou. You are incapable of loving one another.” _She’s not. I’m not._ Her internal voice cried out to her.

“That’s not true.”

“Ah,” Celine replied, almost mournful. “You cannot understand yet, but it is true. You are not made to have but one partner. No single queen could ever be enough. Is it not true?” She glances at Stella. “Did you not choose Rebecca? Was she not your choice that night? Even though?” Stella refuses to look at her, concentrating on the empty land and the horizon. She wishes she could sink into it, to be utterly consumed and set free. _She had done those things_. _They both had_. _And what if it was true? They were incapable of loving one another._

“And Wendy, she can never love you,” Celine continued. “It is not your fault. You have only chosen badly. Your choices give me little choice.” _No._

“There is always choice when there is power,” Stella murmurs, resolute. “You think you can take my choice away. You cannot take hers, no matter how much you try.” She is momentarily glad for the constant motion of the car that allows her to speak these truths to the countryside and the window as they drive. It is somehow easier, even with her translucent reflection visible in the passenger’s side window. _Wendy could choose not to love her._ The thought brings tears to Stella’s eye.


	34. Tesselate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celine, Wendy, Stella, and Dana meet again.

Wendy doesn’t think, just drives, whipping them out of the parking lot and toward the coast. There’s no question of finding Stella, only what she’ll do when she does. It feels impossible to imagine. _I’ll be okay._

Dana’s hand grips the arm rest in the door as Wendy pushes the car faster toward Maen Castle and the cliffs. They don’t speak, even as the rear end of a BMW come into view, even as it pulls off the road.

Celine practically pulls Stella from the car, pushing her in front of her and toward the direction of an old building in the distance. The grass is high and the ground uneven. Stella stumbles, even as Celine drags her further. 

“Stop!” Wendy yells. Celine plows them further forward and Wendy yells out again, only to be met with a yell back from Celine in French. Celine pushes her one last step.

“You came!” Celine exclaims, voice twinged with delight as she whips around. “And you brought your friend!” The winds gust and steal their breath. It muffles their voices, even only a stone’s throw apart.

“I’m here for Stella,” Wendy announces. 

“Mais non, cherie. This is not true.” The shake of Celine’s head is knowing, as if watching a movie for the second time, already aware of each plot point and flaw.“Anyone could have retrieved her. Even Dana,” she proclaimed with a sweeping gesture in Dana’s direction. Dana looks surprised to be called out by name. “Why do you not tell Stella about her? I believe she would like to know!”

“Stop stalling, Celine!” Wendy refuses, taking a step toward Celine and Stella. Celine jerks Stella away, knocking her off balance and onto her knees.

“Non, non. Fair is fair, cherie. I told you about _Rebecca_.”

“No, Celine.”

Celine shrugs. “As you wish,” she replies, turning and delivering Stella a sharp kick to the gut. It doubles her over.

“Celine!” Wendy yells. It’s nearly scolding.

“Tell her,” Celine commands. Wendy nor Dana have the distance or cover to surprise Celine. Wendy stalls for herself.

“We’re friends.”

“Ah, ah, you know what I mean, cherie.”

“I slept with her.” Celine readies a second kick, shifting her weight menacingly. “She’s my lover,” Wendy corrects her voice nearly lost to the wind. _Like partners,_ Stella’s mind echoes the revelation in Watch Croft. All of the shame Wendy has never felt for loving Dana hits her with the weight of a freight train as she meets Stella’s eyes, wet and mournful. _She chose to love someone else._

The four of them stand in a distorted quadrangle, Wendy face to face with Celine with Dana at her flank, fingers itching for her service weapon. At least Wendy had one. 

“Stella. Are you hurt?” Dana calls. Stella’s blonde head shakes, stomach still woozy from the kick and the sudden tearing of her illusions that she might also be loved. She could stand, but she doesn’t. She smells like the dirt caked into her knees. _Dust to dust_.

“I’m here. You got what you wanted,” Wendy prompts. Celine’s lips quirk in amusement.

“Cherie, you know better. This is not an exchange.”

“I don’t want her here.” Wendy says, turning her gaze briefly back to Stella and gesturing with the back of her hand.

“Why not?” Celine retorts. Wendy turns her head, wiping the wind-swept tears from her face as new ones spring to her eyes as the gravity of the situation presses into her more deeply. The move is not lost on Celine.

“You know why. You know. We all do_,” _Wendy replies. Stella’s eyes fall back into the dirt and grasses. _Rebecca. _

“You whore!” Celine yells, suddenly furious, kicking Stella to the ground.

“I love you!” Stella screams into the dirt and wind, pain emanating from her back and sides where Celine’s foot crushed into her body. She wonders if the sound even carried, or if it was simply swallowed by the earth.

“Stop!” Wendy shouts. Celine pauses, allowing Stella to scramble a few feet from the older woman.

“Non! Look what she has done to your heart. Made you weak. Cherie, it is too much.” Her foot lands against Stella’s scapula. She cringes and cries, rolling herself just out of reach. Her body radiates and pulses in pain.

“Celine,” Wendy’s voice is no longer scared and anxious as it was before. “I don’t love her. I never did. You’ll only make things worse.” It wounds Stella more than Celine ever could.

Celine steps forward hesitantly, almost drunkenly, delight written over her face. Dana rushes past her to Stella, whose battered body sinks into the earth, blood in her mouth, sobbing. _Dana_. It almost hurts worse.

“Cherie, come. I have everything we will need. You are wasted here. Come back. There is a chess board. I bought it just for you.” Celine takes another stiff step, then another, arms outstretched.

“Is anything broken,” Dana whispers, her hands instinctively feeling Stella’s slim body for signs of ruptures and breaks. Stella shakes her head, pushing herself up, breath labored and wincing.

“I can’t, Celine. I don’t want to.” Celine’s brows furrow.

“But why? Why cherie? It was so perfect.” Another step. Dana steadies Stella on the ground as she gets her bearings, queasy. Dana worries she might be concussed.

“I have my own life. A life that is good. My own life,” she repeats. Celine’s mouth sets into a hard frown.

“It’s her, isn’t it? All this time! Under my nose!” She whips around, eyes blazing and fixed on Dana. “You!” She charges.

Stella sees the knife before Dana is even fully aware of what is happening. _No_. Her muscles sting and her head swims as she hurls her body forward, pushing Dana flat into the dirt, covering her with her own dirt-smudged and bruised body. The slice of the knife makes her scream, wild with pain as it sears into her ribs. It feels as if she’s being sliced in half. Her mind flashes, overwhelmed by the sensation of pain. She doesn’t even hear the shot. The thud of Celine’s body falling beside her is the only thing that registers until she feels Dana start to stir beneath her.

“Stella,” she says breathless, “Stella!” All Stella can register is the pain in her back.

“She loves you,” Stella gasps, eyes loosely focused on Dana’s red hair and freckled face as she pulls herself from beneath Stella’s body. It suddenly feels very heavy. “I couldn’t let her —” Her jaw tenses as her heavy breath aggravates the knife still in buried in her muscle as she turns herself to gaze up and Dana, face floating above her as she struggles to still Stella’s body. “Someone has to love Wendy.” Another heavy gasp. Dana is telling her to stop but she can’t. “I love her.” Another. She feels lightheaded. Dana is holding her still. “She loves you. I —“ she feels the knife jerk from her back and heavy pressure on her back. “If she loves you — “ Stella’s voice is cut off by gasping breath, “I couldn’t let you die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... What do you think?


	35. Funeral Singers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After.

Wendy refused to go in the ambulance, pushing Dana toward the steps instead. When she protests, Wendy reminds her that she’s not a doctor. “And you are. I want a doctor in the van.” The truth is so much more simple — so much more painful. Dana knows it. So, she hoists herself into the back of the ambulance and helps the medic pull the doors shut behind them. Wendy follows in the Jaguar.

The look a pair in the waiting room, Dana’s cream and burgundy sweater dinged reddish brown in patches across her torso. Wendy has the same on her sleeves, stained from holding pressure on the wound while they waited for help. Wendy thought about going down to the carpark and changing into something else. She wanted to. She would have — if not for the fear that somehow she might jinx it — break the spell. As if Stella might die if she weren’t there, standing in her bloody sweater, waiting for news.

Dana receives all the updates. It’s only after Stella is wheeled into a post-operative recovery room that Wendy allows Dana to leave her side.

“I’ll get a hotel room,” she says. “And new clothes. Just stay here.” Wendy is grateful for Dana — impossibly grateful. She nods and Dana kisses her cheek with a long, loving press of her mouth. “I love you,” she says. “Call me if she wakes up before I’m back.” Wendy lets her go, watching her petite form vanish behind the movement of nurses, carts, and gurneys.

They promise she’ll be told when Stella wakes up. She’s not allowed in the room until she’s conscious. The doctor suggests she wait until Stella has had time to speak with local law enforcement and a counselor. Wendy shakes her head.

“I have the jurisdiction. Tell me first.”

Dana returns before Stella wakes up. The nurses inform them it’s not so uncommon and to be patient. When they are out of earshot, Dana confirms as much. She needs time, Dana tells her, encouraging her to go to the hotel, to shower, and sleep. “You need it,” Dana murmurs, holding Wendy’s hand gently. “I promise, I’ll be here.” Wendy nods and leans down to kiss Dana softly.

Stella dreams she’s in a tube station. _It’s crowded and smells like stale coffee and chlorine. It’s noisy, too. There’s a roar to the voices, all muddling together. She’s looking for someone. Squeezing across the platform is a challenge, and she’s jostled to and fro as if she’s already inside the train, swinging around the track bends. She can see a wave of bright blonde hair at the corner of the platform. It changes color in the light, oscillating between red and blonde as she turns her head. She tries to keep her eyes straight on so she can see her properly. Her vision doesn’t stabilize though, instead it grows murky, until she cannot quite tell the difference between this red-haired woman and the blonde. She stumbles, coughing blood onto the platform until her heart falls from her mouth onto the platform tile. She cannot speak. _

Stella wakes up slowly, the phantom taste of blood in her mouth as she slowly regains sensation in her limbs. The searing pain she felt on the cliff grasses has given way to an omnipresent ache in her chest and abdomen. She presses the call button for a nurse, whose name is Belinda. Belinda brings her water and Dana, who looks tired, but happy.

“You’re awake,” she says with a smile, drawing the bedside chair close. “How do you feel?”

“Dead,” Stella’s voice rasps.

“I’ll call Wendy,” Dana says, gently resting her palm on Stella’s free hand. The other is still taped to an IV drip.

“Please don’t,” Stella asks, looking away at the stock art painting adorning the side of the room.

“I told her I would. She wants to see you. I had to practically peel her out of the waiting room to take a shower,” Dana tells her gently. Stella says nothing. Dana’s hand rests over Stella’s. They’re warm and soft and Stella wishes to gods unknown that they didn’t smell like Wendy’s hand cream.

“Tell her not to come. I don’t want to see her.” Her eyes prick with the threat of unshed tears, her face impassive and cold.

“Don’t push her away,” Dana murmurs, hand closing over Stella’s. “You’ll push yourselves right out of one another’s lives.” Stella stares at the bad stock painting on the adjacent wall. Dana doesn’t push. Stella’s heart beats with unspoken words, apologies and proclamations and questions, all jumbled and thudding in her chest with the monitored rhythm diagramed in a digital line across the screen at her bedside.

“Ask her,” Dana says. Stella’s eyes flicker. “Just ask her everything. She wants to tell you. She just doesn’t know how,” Dana tells her, giving her hand a final squeeze and releasing it as she stands, fingers reaching into the pocket of her coat for her cell phone. Stella turns to watch her go. She listens to the one-sided conversation as Dana stands outside the door. She wishes she could hear Wendy on the other end of the line. She can almost hear the “I love you” that prompts Dana’s quiet “I love you, too.” It sticks in her chest. She misses the the final words of the call. _“She loves you, too.” _Stella’s heart pumps in spite of itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Their story isn't over yet.   
Tell me how you feel!


	36. Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the hospital.

Wendy arrives 35 minutes later holding a bag of food in her hand, her keys dangling from the other as if she had physically run up from the carpark. Her hair is pulled back in a rough knot she tied still sitting in bed as Dana talked into the phone. Stella was awake and alive. And talking. Her stomach flipped as she struggled to pull her pants on with one hand. She told Dana she loved her and allowed the words to wash over her when she returned them, adding that Stella did, too. She’d rushed out, barely remembering her purse.

“I brought gyros. I thought you would be hungry.” It’s all Wendy can think to say, holding the bag up as proof.

“I can’t eat yet,” Stella tells her, voice flat. Wendy shakes her head, stepping into the room.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just… thought you would be hungry.”

“You don’t need to be here.”

“Why did you do it?” Wendy asks impulsively, her coolness and calm utterly evaporated by the combination of stress, sleeplessness, and the horror of seeing her lover stabbed. And having to shoot her first love with her own gun. It made her stomach contract around itself.

Stella wishes she could feign ignorance or amnesia. Why had she done it? The answer was so glaringly obvious and yet so difficult to bring to words. How could she begin to tell Wendy the truth? How could she confess her love to someone who had chosen someone else? It felt twisted and Shakespearean. Farcical, even. But it wasn’t a farce. It wasn’t even a tragedy. It was simply the devastating truth.

Wendy sets the bag of food on the empty table next to Stella’s bed. It crinkles under the weight of the sandwiches, spots already appearing on the bag where grease and fat was seeping to the outside.

“Gyros.” Stella said, eyeing the back with reservation.

“Yes,” Wendy confirms.

“Like in London.” _Like our first date_, she means to say.

“Yes. I — it reminded me of you.” Wendy allows herself to collapse in the chair beside Stella. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought them. I just couldn’t come empty handed.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Wendy offers, eyes seeking out Stella’s. She won’t quite meet her gaze. “When I said I didn’t care about you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Stella, please —“

“It doesn’t matter,” Stella says more forcefully. “It’s done. It doesn’t matter anymore. You have Dana. Go back to your hotel and sleep it off with her.”

“I wanted to see you, Stella,” Wendy says, more urgent than before.

“I know. She said that. I’m fine.” Stella’s words are short and blunt, her patience wearing thin as the smell of gyros makes her nauseous. Whether it’s from the anesthesia or being reminded of those moments in London strolling down the street and falling in love is impossible to say.

“Stella, please,” Wendy pleads. “I just need to know you’re alright.”

“I am fine.” Stella grits out.

“Why are you angry with me? I killed for you! I killed Celine. She’s dead. Don’t be angry with me!” It’s desperate, a fighting grip on some sort of sense to this senseless ploy. People died. People were wounded. Resources were wasted. And for what? For Wendy? For Celine?

Somewhere in her heart, Wendy knew what it was for. What Celine had done it for. That she knew scared her. It was for love. For want of love. Was Celine even capable of love? Wendy no longer knew. But she understood that she had wanted it with the kind of desperation that propelled people to madness. Perhaps they were all mad for it. She had killed Celine. With justification and cause, surely. But also with the reflexive knowledge now, in the relative safety of the drab hospital room, that she hadn’t needed to shoot to kill. Not practically. Had she been thinking like the field agents she over saw, she might have instead chosen a hand-to-hand approach. She was the one who made it a gunfight when Celine only had a knife. How could she pretend not to understand the desperation of love?

Stella watched her, eyes like sparks. Luminous and dangerous.

“You didn’t kill her for me. You killed her for you. And Dana.”

“Dana? For Dana? You threw yourself in front of a knife for Dana!” Wendy’s voice suddenly feels raw and loud. She wishes she’d shut the door.

“For you!” Stella cried. “I did it for you!”

“What are you talking about! I wasn’t even there!”

“I did it for you!” Stella repeated, flushed, the cardiac monitor racing in time with her heart. “You’re in love with Dana! What could I have done? This is all for you! Celine. Dana. Me. It’s all for you. Everything.” Stella’s words deflate her, theexasperation and loathing that had filled her suddenly gone, leaving a vacuous void between her ribs. She rolled over. Enough. It was enough.

“I’m what?”

“It doesn’t matter, Wendy. Go home.”

“I’m not.” Wendy steps toward the bed, hands hanging at her sides.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice sounds distant and Wendy can feel the chasm between them.

“I’m not in love with Dana. I love her. I’ve loved her for so long. It’s never been that kind of love, Stella. It’s companionship. Friendship. One in a lifetime friendship. It’s deep and it’s true, but it’s not… It’s not the love I have for you. I’m not in love with her. I could never love her the same way that I love you.” _I love you._ The words ricoche in Wendy’s mind. “I am in love with you.”

Stella doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t breathe. She has heard the words before. Those words and others, spoken in moments of lust and desire. Decrees of devotion that she forsook, uninterested and unwilling. She had waited for _these _words for so long without knowing it. They sting like alcohol in a wound. _I am in love with you._

After a long moment, Stella answers, her body impossibly quiet and still, her monitor obediently displaying each beat of her heart, breaking slowly inside her chest. “You’ll never love me like Dana.”

“I don’t want to,” Wendy whispers. “I want to love _you._ Stella. Please. Don’t put me in a box. Our hearts,” Wendy pauses, struggling for words. “They’re so big. I know.” Her hand reaches for Stella’s light and limp on the off-white hospital sheets, tangling their fingers together. “We could love one another. I know we could.”

“I do,” Stella answers, voice still a million miles away, barely audible. “I love you.” They are mournful words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... yeah. I think there will be one more chapter? Maybe two? You must tell me how you feel...


	37. Heart of My Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then there was Rebecca...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're entering the home-stretch! Maybe one or two chapters left? More at the end...

Stella doesn’t look at Wendy, but allows her to hold her hand until it feels almost natural again. Wendy is grateful to be able to touch her again. It’s only now, fingers interlaced, that she truly allows herself to feel the intensity of her own uncertainty and anxiety of almost losing Stella.

Stella lies with her head turned toward the wall with the painting. It’s discolored in its frame, a sickly yellow color that brings out its generic composition. A tree in a field. She hates it. She wishes they’d left it off the walls when they designed the place.

“Do you actually like art?” Stella asks, eyes tracing the muddy lines of the brush strokes of the tree trunk.

“Yes,” Wendy replies. “I love it.” She wishes she hadn’t selected _that _word quite so soon. Stella doesn’t react, only blinks as if to change the painting through the fluttering of her eyelashes.

“I asked Dana to come back.”

“Why?”

“I want her here.” Stella shifts uncomfortably, unsettled by Wendy’s declaration, regardless of its soft-spoken manner.

“When can I get out of here. I want to go home.”

“I don’t know,” Wendy answers honestly. “Please don’t go before you’re ready.”

Dana agrees to drive the Jaguar back to London and Stella and Wendy take the train. They make the arrangements sitting around Stella’s. Stella regards them with an interrogator’s eye and feigned detachment. It’s feigned for her benefit more than theirs.

Dana looks lovely and Wendy seems to sink into her presence like returning to a favorite armchair. Stella’s stomach twists. _She’s jealous. _The word doesn’t quite fit, though. Wendy loved her. She’d said it. She’d told Stella precisely what she needed to hear. She wasn’t jealous. She was envious. Envious of the casual intimacy Dana brought out in Wendy. The familiarity. The safety. What intimacies had she ever shared with Wendy beyond their corporeal pleasures? Stella’s stomach twisted tighter with the feeling that she had already lost Wendy — not to Dana, but to her own shortcomings. She pulled her hand from under Wendy’s.

“Stella?” Wendy’s voice radiates with concern.

“I’m fine,” she brushes off. Dana’s browns furrow delicately. “I’m fine,” Stella repeats.

“Are you sure?” Wendy asks, hand resting on the bed where Stella had left it.

“You don’t need to stay here. You and Dana take the car. I’ll check myself out when the time comes.” Dana rejects the idea outright, remarking that at the very least, Stella should not be driving, and at worst, will likely need some assistance getting back to London. Stella protests. It’s clear that it isn’t about the train.

“Would you like to enlighten us as to what this is actually about? We are wasting time and energy — energy that you should be reserving for recovery.” Wendy recognizes Dana’s no-nonsense, don’t-you-dare-weasel-me tone. Stella’s eyes widen then cool.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Dana’s hands akimbo on her waist.

“We want to be here,” Wendy adds. Stella doesn’t answer. The street lights flicker on outside.

“Is it me? Do you need me to leave?” Dana asks with flagrant exasperation.

“Stay,” Wendy answers. “It’s me,” she acknowledges. Dana quirks her eyebrow, but shrugs softly, backing off.

“Our relationship was blown to shit,” Stella declares. “Let’s not pretend otherwise. Let’s not pretend Celine didn’t do exactly what she set out to do.” _Rebecca. _Dana’s eyes sought out Wendy’s, though they failed to connect as Wendy averted her gaze to the orange glow of the streetlamp outside.

“What do you want me to say.” It’s not a question and Wendy doesn’t expect an answer. Perhaps she had hoped that if she simply ignored Rebecca — ignored her own heartbreak — that it would simply evaporate like water in the sunshine. Stella did not reply, but Dana understood the implicit cry in conversation. _Absolve me_.

“You cheated on me,” Wendy says quietly. “I was _there_. But I wasn’t enough. Is that what you want to talk about?”

“That,” Stella pinpoints. “That’s what it’s about.”

“What?”

“We weren’t monogamous. Obviously.” Stella waves between Dana and Wendy, evidence of their complicated relationship and the absences of fidelity. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” It’s almost convincing. Stella is convincing herself as much as Wendy. She hadn’t done anything wrong. But it felt like she had. It felt different. What did fidelity mean anyway?

“Neither did I. Dana — I already explained this to you,” Wendy argued. "We are _friends._"

"Special friends," Stella retorts sarcastically.

"Rebecca was a _special friend_, wasn't she?" Wendy bites back. 

“The both of you are impossible,” Dana interjects. “You are in love with one another and you _want _monogamy, or at least a commitment. That’s the truth, isn’t it?” Wendy searches Stella’s eyes, searching for the confirmation that it was Stella’s truth as it was hers. “Don’t succumb to the patriarchy’s rules now.”

“I love you,” Wendy affirms. Stella meets her eyes with reservation. They’re so bright and so blue. “She's my best friend." Stella blinks back the tears already settling in her eyes, nodding mutely. _I love you, too. _

"I know," Stella says. _I love you. _The statement is ambiguous and broad. Wendy feels it, though. She ventures a look at Dana, hair softly falling around her face as it tips to the side gently. It gives Wendy to courage to believe she does. "Do you trust me?" Stella asks. Wendy nods. "I do." It resonates through the bland room like a vow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I really need to know how you're feeling about this, because I'm not sure how I feel about it.


	38. Fire Rides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honey, they're home!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep saying one or two more chapters. Maybe I mean it this time? I don't know.

Stella is used to being physically powerful. Her compact frame is composed of well toned muscles achieved through the repetitive practice of swim strokes and defense training. She’s accustomed to a kind of dominance in the bedroom that makes her powerful, too. Exercising control over herself, her lovers, and her situation. She recalls mounting James Olsen as one prime and deeply satisfactory example of how powerful she can be.

She hates how Celine has dismantled her feelings of power and control. Her body aches from well-timed kicks and slaps. It aches from unfulfilled desire and the knowledge that she can never have the kind of control over Wendy she could presume over men. Perhaps she doesn’t want it. But she yearns for the simplicity that comes with a man like Olsen. The kind of man she could invite to her room, riding until she came with her skirt still on, and kick out when she was done. It’s a feeling she wishes she could tamp down, or better yet, stamp out, but she can’t. The truth is that she isn’t built for this.

When they arrive back in London, Wendy orders the cab to her home without question, ushering them both inside before Stella can protest that she does in fact have her own dwelling and is perfectly fine on her own. The chaste kiss Wendy places on her lips makes her want to call the cab back and demand that he take her to the nearest bar, or maybe just _take_ her. Instead she twists her head, opens her mouth, and licks Wendy’s lips, slipping her tongue in delicately as they part. It feels good. Her hands reach for Wendy’s coat, inside it, under the Merino sweater, nails scraping lightly over the skin of her torso. Wendy gasps Stella’s name, nearly in protest. Stella reaches her fingers up further.

“Stella, stop.” It’s a whisper but it makes Stella feel like screaming. She doesn’t want to be fussed over. She wants to fuck.

“Wendy, come on,” she whines, hands resting under Wendy’s shirt. “I want to fuck you.”

“Stella, you’re just out of hospital.”

“Fuck me,” Stella demands with a whisper, her eyes daring Wendy to refuse her, calling Wendy’s bluff that she hasn’t missed Stella in precisely the same carnal way. Her mouth hovers over Wendy’s, willing her to lean in, to kiss her, to fuck her.

“In bed.” Wendy answers. She gives just enough.

They tumble into bed, Stella pants-less, upper body still shrouded in fabric covering over the bandages on her chest and back, and Wendy nearly nude as a result of Stella’s deft fingers and amorous mood. Stella is on top, pushing Wendy into the mattress. It hurts, taking the wind out of her at times as she feels the sharp pains and dull tear of wounds both external and internal. It takes her breath away.

“Stella,” Wendy pauses in alarm, wiggling out from under Stella’s straddled legs.

“I’m fine,” Stella insists, breath slightly labored.

“Lay down,” Wendy suggests, hand gently guiding Stella down.

“No!” Stella protests more vigorously. “I want to fuck. I want to fuck you,” she repeats.

“Not right now. It’s not a good time.” The words infuriate Stella, who ducks out of Wendy’s grasp and pushes herself back until her spine is flush with the headboard. She pulls at the bedside drawers, rummaging blindly with eyes fixed on Wendy. She doesn’t know who she’s angry at per se — Wendy for being too gentle or herself for needing it.

It’s only a matter of time before she finds what she’s looking for. The soft weight of the phallus in her hand is almost a relief. She swipes one hand between her legs, rubbing the wetness over the purple silicon shell before dipping it back between her thighs and squirming as she brings it against her clit and into her vagina. Wendy watches her silently, pupils wide and lips wet from the moisture of licking them repeatedly as she watched Stella, in no uncertain terms, fuck herself.

It’s wanton and lust-addled and Wendy can feel the message loud and clear. _I’m not fragile. You’ll fuck me whether you touch me or not. _It’s unapologetically erotic and breathy and Wendy realizes too late that she’s touching herself as she watches Stella creep closer to orgasm inches deep on her favorite dildo. Stella notices it too, her mouth curving upward in a predatory smile as she watches Wendy pleasure herself. Fuck it feels good to fuck. She leans back against the headboard, allowing it to take her weight as she rolls and grinds her hips. She can hear Wendy’s breath start to hitch in that tell-tale way. Her adrenaline surges as she forces herself to look down the bed at Wendy. The sight makes her cum with a moan, brow furrowing as her body tenses around the toy. It’s exquisite and Stella is reminded why the French refer to the moments after orgasm as “little death.” She is only faintly aware of hearing Wendy mewl as she finishes, or the soft impact of her body on the rug as she sinks into the floor, breathing in short panting exhales. _Fuck_, she thinks. _Fuck that felt good._ She looks at Wendy, prompted against the bed, eyes looking back up at her through chocolate brown waves. Fuck Celine for ever trying to take Wendy away from her. Fuck Stella for letting her nearly do it. _Fuck Wendy_. It’s all she seems to want to do.

Wendy pulls herself off the floor, raising herself to full height before ducking down to kiss Stella’s lips again, pulling their bodies together, hands in her hair and on her waist, roaming across the familiar topographies of Stella’s body. Stella’s finger tip works in circular motions over a patch of skin behind her shoulder, the bullet hole, as Dana called it. Bullet _scar_ she correct. She’d allow Stella to call it whatever she liked.

“I missed you,” she whispered into Stella’s mouth, their breath hot as it mingled between them.

“I am in love with you, Wendy Palmer,” Stella rasps in reply, lips seeking out Wendy’s neck, finger still tracing the contours of her scars — tiny violent imprints of a life. Wendy tangles her hand in Stella’s blonde hair and kisses her as the other sneaks around her back, resting like a feather over the bandage atop the knife wound. She knew that she meant it. Wendy kissed her harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not good at this part, but I'm trying. Tell me what you think?


	39. Wasteland, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're home.

Dana arrives and takes up residence in the guest bedroom down the hall from Wendy’s bedroom where Stella spends most of the day laid out looking at the ceiling, thinking. She can hear Wendy and Dana down the hall, their indistinct conversation wafting through the house. She wonders what they’re saying, but not enough to ask, or move. She’s thinking. And feeling. She’s been through enough counseling to knowshe should be letting herself feel her emotions, but they’re too knotted for her to _feel _them distinctly. Instead, she just feels them like a lump in her chest.

Dana checks on her, offers to change the bandage on her back.. She pulls her shirt over her head, standing in the bedroom, lit by lamps and the daylight filtering through sheer curtains. The air feels good on her skin. Dana touches her gently with healer’s hands. Stella relaxes, exposed to the air and to Dana, who cares for delicately and efficiently. With love. Stella’s chin droops toward her chest as Dana changes the bandage, checking for infection.

“It looks good,” she tells Stella. Stella nods.

“Will you do the front?” Stella asks. She could change the bandage from the surgical incision herself. It’s just beside her breast, a reminder of the fact that the doctors had_ reinflated_ her lung for her in hospital after Celine had collapsed it. It didn’t bother her much to feel it. But it hurt to see it.

“Of course,” Dana said, shifting to the front. “Lift your arm.”

“Thank you,” Stella acknowledges, not quite looking at Dana so much as looking beyond her into the distance.

“I should be thanking you,” Dana replied. “We both know that was supposed to be mine to take.” Stella is quiet. “I know, Stella,” she continues. “You don’t have to say it.” Stella wants to cry in that moment, the weight of it all suddenly falling to the ground. The weight of love, of sacrifice, of strength, of vulnerability. She felt Dana press the new bandage to her side, piecing her back together.

They decide to get lunch near the river. Wendy drives and Dana sits in the back, a dutiful third wheel keeping their wayward tricycle balanced. By the time they’re parked, though, she’s practically gnawing through the seatbelt. She’s hungry. That’s what she tells them as they approach the shoreside promenade. She leans in to kiss Wendy,

“I’ll be back in a bit. I’ve just got to eat something now or I’ll just die.”

“Alright,” Wendy concedes, kissing her lips softly. “Eat something more than bee pollen, will you?” Dana’s eyes sparkle with mirth.

“Yeah, sure.” She waves to Stella as she starts to walk back toward a Costas on the corner. “I’ll see you two in a few.”

Alone in the crowd with Wendy in the overcast light of day, Stella sees her with eyes. She looks tired, almost fossilized into a permanent state of stern concern. Stella catches her hand with the tips of her fingers, looping her hand into Wendy’s. A young woman croons delicately with her guitar about love and the end of the world. 

“Wasteland, baby,” Stella says, watching their feet step in time.

“What?”

“The song. It’s called ‘Wasteland, Baby.’ I heard it on the radio in the car.”

“Just now?” Wendy asks absently.

“With Celine,” Stella supplies, looking across the scattered people and the Thames. “It stuck with me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It made me think of you.” Wendy glances at her, but Stella’s gaze is still elsewhere.

“Where do we go now?” Wendy asks, savoring the softness of Stella’s hand in hers.

Stella knows what she means but pretends she doesn’t, pausing at the railing to lean over the side and watch the water dance. “Back that way, if you want to” she gestures. Wendy squeezes her hand. “Wherever we want to go,” she amends. _I’d go anywhere with you_. She can’t say it.

“I wish I knew where that was exactly,” Wendy murmurs.

“Don’t you know?”

“Do you?” Wendy volleys back.

“I know what I want,” Stella asserts.

“You do?”

“Yes, I do,” she answers, turning her head to face Wendy, meeting her eyes directly for the first time since breakfast. Wendy’s eyes widen as she turns and Stella wonders if perhaps she’s misjudged once again.

“You’re bleeding, Stella,” she says, hurriedly pulling tissues from her pocket. Stella looks down at her coat — thankfully black, spotted with droplets.

“Tip your head back,” Wendy commands, gently pushing Stellas chin upward and pressing tissues into her palm. Stella dabs at her nose, but the fibers stick rather than wick. Wendy is wiping blood droplets off her cheek when Stella notices the red stain on her white sleeve.

“Stop, Wendy!” Stella tells her firmly. Wendy freezes, then pulls back as though burned. “It’s on your shirt,” Stella points, head still tilted slightly.

“Fuck, I don’t care,” Wendy replies, pulling the last tissue from the pack and shoving the plastic wrapper back into her pocket. “You’re nose is bleeding all over you,” she says, stepping back into Stella’s personal space. Stella retreats a step.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Let me help you, Stella.”

“I’ve got it!” Stella snaps. Wendy retreats, her shoes clicking on the concrete tiles. There’s a familiar look in her eyes — that look of disappointed rejection. _I thought you wanted me. _It tears into Stella.

“I’m sorry,” Wendy says, adopted the crisp, clean, voice she uses on conference calls and mission assignments.

“Wendy,” Stella steps into her space, lowering her face and dabbing the blood from her face. She looks a horror. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, Stella. I can’t be what you want me to be.” It takes Stella aback.  
“I cannot be someone you take to bed every now and again. I know…” she shakes her head, “I know that’s what you want. I know. You have every right to want that. But I can’t be it. I’m in _love _with you.” She shakes her head again, looking at the blood on the sleeves of her pressed shirt, shinning off the buttons on the cuffs. “I can’t do it I’m sorry.”

Stella hears the soft crack in her voice, but the words of reassurance won’t come. She reaches for Wendy’s reddened hands, still holding clumps of dirty tissues. She squishes them into their palms as she holds Wendy’s hands in hers. “I love you, Wendy,” she whispers. They feel like new words on her tongue. Wendy’s forehead rests against hers. “It’s you.”

“You,” Wendy echoes. She can smell the iron of the blood in her nose and the smell of the river on the air. It feels so loud and so quiet all at once, as if the world is slowly sinking away from them, as if the world is ending around them. Perhaps it is. And yet. Stella blinks, allowing her eyes to trace the lines of their hands.

“I’d do it again.” It’s the answer to the unanswered question that had been hanging in the air since the hospital, since Celine’s death, since the surgery and the train-ride, and all those moments sandwiched together. What had it meant? What had any of it meant? Stella knew now. Irrevocably and undeniably. It was love, certainly that. But it was more than that, too. Utter and unyielding. Undeniable and true. _Devotion. _

“I have never loved someone like you” Wendy whispers.

“You’re the only one,” Stella confessed, twisting her face to meet Wendy’s, their lips pressing together in a kiss both sweet and firm. It felt like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's wasteland, baby.   
If you haven't heard the song, Wasteland, Baby!, I recommend it. It provided a lot of inspiration for me. Anyway, there you have it. What did you think? A fitting end for Stella and Wendy? Maybe a new beginning? Tell me how you feel!


End file.
